Occupy DC: PL Teach-in Provokes Sharp Debate

WASHINGTON, November 12 — PL’ers held an Anti-Capitalism Teach-in at Occupy DC in order to sharpen the debate around the movement’s political analysis and strategies for change. Three long-term occupiers had attended a PLP study-action group and encouraged us to do this. Almost all of the fifty occupiers and friends at this event had previously received CHALLENGE.

Presenters stated that capitalism is based on exploitation and racism. They explained how its internal contradictions, due to the impoverishment of the workers by the ruthless drive for profit by the bosses, creates periodic depressions. They also argued that the state (the government) is a tool of the capitalist system. It must be smashed, not reformed.

Smash the State

Capitalism must be replaced, they continued, with a communist system where the international working class collectively runs society, planning production based on workers’ needs and liberating the creativity of the billions of wage slaves on the planet.  Presenters noted that communists work strategically in all kinds of mass organizations to bring these ideas to broad groups of people, but that special emphasis is put on industrial workers, like the transit workers in DC. The temporary shutdown of the Port of Oakland, for example, could not have happened without the longshore workers.

There are lots of different views among the occupiers, which came out in the discussion following the presentations. Some argued that campaign reform, especially a constitutional amendment to bar corporate contributions to campaigns, would let the elected representations genuinely represent the people. PL’ers responded that the state is part of the capitalist system and controlled by the bosses, and that no reform could change that fact.

Others argued that withdrawing from the capitalist economy by setting up alternative communities, like the occupy sites, was a sound strategy to create a new society.  PL’ers countered that until we gain state power, it’s better to organize on the job to confront the bosses at the point of production.

These debates went on for some time, and will certainly continue at Occupy DC. The validity of our analysis and politics is already gaining traction among some occupiers, and could be demonstrated in the coming period as the crisis of capitalism deepens and the repression and racism by the state intensifies.