On November 14, approximately 85 people attended the day-long Socialism 2009 Washington State Conference at Seattle University. Held during a time of severe economic crisis and a growing questioning of the capitalist system, activists gathered to discuss a variety of current and past political topics. One main session was about how we can bring about the change we need with Obama and the Democratic Party in power. The other main session was a debate between a business columnist for the Seattle Times and an editorial board member of Justice (Socialist Alternative’s national newspaper). They debated whether we need to merely regulate capitalism or whether we need to replace capitalism, root and branch, with a new system - socialism.
The conference took place around the time of the ten-year anniversary of the massive WTO protests which rocked Seattle and became a clarion call that opened a new period of struggle against corporate rule throughout the world. Opening remarks by Ramy Khalil, a member of Socialist Alternative and an organizer of student walkouts during the WTO, pointed to the trajectory of increased struggles this past decade that the WTO protests inspired.
During the first main session, “Obama and the Democratic Party: How Can we Win the Change we Need?”, activists debated the effectiveness of depending on the Democratic Party to deliver true, lasting reforms to working people, people of color, and the environment. The current health care reform debate and the role Democratic politicians have played provided an apt starting point for the main speaker, Teddy Shibabaw, who came to speak from the Minneapolis branch of Socialist Alternative. Shibabaw explained that while individual Democrats may genuinely support reform, they are forever limited by the nature of the Democratic Party as a fundamentally corporate party. It’s this limitation, coupled with their belief that the capitalist free market system is the best way to organize society, which prevents progressive Democrats from mounting any serious challenges to the right-wing hysteria and corporate resistance to health care reform.
The speaker also exposed the two faces of the Democratic Party: campaigning as anti-war, for example, yet voting for every war funding appropriation bill; proclaiming support for women to have control over their bodies, yet voting to deny poor and working women access to funding for abortions. This is especially evident in Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize at a time when he is ordering another 30,000 troops to an unjust and unwinnable war in Afghanistan!
The speaker ended by pointing to the need for struggle in the form of mass movements as the means to bring about real change. He also emphasized the need for working people to form their own political party that can represent their interests - a political party for the millions, not the millionaires!
Following the main session the conference broke out into six different workshops:
- 90th Anniversary of the 1919 Seattle General Strike: Lessons for the Labor Movement Today
- Anarchism or Marxism: How Can Capitalism be Defeated?
- Copenhagen Summit: How Can We Stop Global Warming?
- Organizing Protests Against War and the Afghanistan Troop Surge in YOUR High School
- Opposing the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan: A Discussion Led by an Iraq Veteran and a Military Family Member
- LGBT Rights: Next Steps for the Movement After Referendum 71
The conference ended with a debate between Justice editorial board member Philip Locker and Seattle Times economics columnist Jon Talton. They debated the implications of the recession, whether the free-market system has failed, and what the alternative is - democratic socialism or a reformed capitalism.
As often happens, reformers like Talton largely agree with socialists about the problems inherent in capitalism: exploitation of working people and the environment, concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands, and the role the state plays in protecting the interests of the ruling elite at the expense of the majority of society. But the difference lies in how they believe change will come about and the sort of change that is needed.
Reformers commonly look back with Rockwellian, rose-tinted glasses to the "glory days" of capitalism following the post-World War II boom. That period in history saw the greatest expansion of productivity and growth of wealth in human history. They wax nostalgic about the growth of the middle class from 1945-1975 and largely attribute that to the benefits of capitalism.
In reality the growth of the middle class was not created by capitalism, but in spite of capitalism. The decent middle-class living standards that existed from 1945-1975 had to be fought for by workers against intransigent resistance from the capitalists. Workers won the 8-hour work day, the minimum wage, and Social Security only through the most determined unionization battles. The threat from a rival societal structure in the form of the Stalinist Soviet Union also put pressure on the capitalist elites in the West to grant concessions and reforms to workers to head off any potential socialist revolutions.
Reformers also tend to look to politicians or powerful individuals to affect change. History has shown, however, that it is only mass movements of ordinary people that have succeeded in pressuring politicians to pass reforms. For example, women's right to vote was not granted because politicians decided, after thousands of years of oppression, that women deserved equal rights. No, it was won because of the militant struggles of women who organized a social movement demanding equality.
The conference concluded with an energetic and inspiring appeal to join Socialist Alternative in the struggle for a new world along with an appeal for donations. The financial appeal raised over $400.
