Every day, 24,000 children die needlessly of hunger, lack of water, or curable disease, in order to maintain the capitalist system. As tans-national capitalism continues to grow, stealing the world’s resources, pulling more of Second and Third World People’s off their land, destroying the self-sufficiency of nations and eco-systems, more and more lives will be needed to sacrifice on the altar if capitalist production. How many babies are too many before we stop considering reformist alternatives to total revolution?
Capitalism, and it’s newest stages of imperialism and state-capitalism called Globalization, is a system of cut-throat competition. It is unstable, unsustainable; It is inherently undemocratic and unjust, driven by profit in the interest of a few. This leads to frequent economic crisis in which the 1% can only survive at the expense of humanity and the planet.
As profits fall, unemployment and starvation become the norm. Being hungry is not enough to deserve to be fed. People must also have the money to eat, and starving people are simply part of the “demand” keeping prices high enough to be profitable. The system will let the food rot, or destroy it, before it uses the surplus to end starvation.
While Globalization promised economic development in the Third World, instead we have seen a return to some of the oldest, most ruthless, methods of capitalism – including slavery, child slavery and labor, and human trafficking.Clearly, only a world-wide revolution at the point of production and reproduction – led by Women, the unemployed, and People of Color from the poorest countries – with the goal of ending all forms of oppression and including all oppressed elements of society in its struggle, can challenge this new stage of trans-national capital, and the united state-capitalist powers of China and the US.
A new uprising around the word, from Egypt to Spain to South Africa to Wall Street, is experimenting in new forms of democratic self-organization, and attempting to put theory into practice. This Movement spreading across the world questioning the validity of capitalism also questions our own theory and practice. We see this as a challenge to revolutionaries as well – to work within the new forms of resistance - consensus decision-making - to achieve a new theoretical consensus that can move us forward. We trust in the process of the collective mind to create something greater than any individual.
But in the process of consensus, the voices of the oppressed can be stifled, as well as those of the Third Worlds. In this movement against the corporations and for radical political democracy, we do not overlook economic and social democracy as well. We must represent the needs of the Third World and fight for the rights and autonomy of women, workers, people of color, youth, and LBT.
Mission:
People Not Profit is not a party or organization. We do not run for office, nor do we recruit members. We are just a few people who care who publish a blog, and we want to publish a zine because our aim is to be a space for the self-determination of the idea of freedom through articles, debate, news, and engagement with the oppressed struggles for freedom around the world. We opposes capitalism, imperialism, the vanguard party to lead, and all forms of oppression, including classism, racism, ageism, sexism, homophobia, and the divisions between leaders and followers. Each of struggle for liberation, in their self-determination, creates new ways of thinking and being.
People not Profit exists to deepen the radicalization of the anti-Globalization, Acampada, Indignados, and the new Occupation movements sweeping the world, including Occupy Wall Street in the New York and Take the Square in Madrid. We aim to do this by not just keeping the abolition of capitalism in the discussion, but by agitating for more participation by unemployed and poor workers, POC/Blacks, and others locked out of not just the economic and political system, but Left or radical formations as well.
Networking:
People Not Profit works in coalition with the organizations of the , and encourages anarcho-socialists, libertarian marxists, and libertarian socialists to work together with the unemployed and unorganized Workers, Blacks/POC, Women, Youth, LGBT, and all the oppressed , in non-sectarian ways to reach a new theoretical consensus that can help guide radical activity. Both People Not Profit and WLSN try to be a space for the self-determination of the idea of freedom, radical praxis, and debate that arise from this new vision of the transition period and the role of revolutionaries who reject vanguardism. Opinions expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of People Not Profit or WLSN.
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