Joma Sison message to IPE’s Marx@200 study confab

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Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, sent this message of solidarity to the Marx@200 Study Conference on 13 June 2018 at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus. The study conference was co-organized by the Institute of Political Economy, International League for Peoples’ Struggle, and Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement). The text was lifted verbatim from the Jose Maria Sison website (URL: https://josemariasison.org/study-marx-to-resist-imperialism/). We did some minor editing for heading style and punctuation marks. To download the PDF version, click on the PDF icon or file link at the end of the full text below. 

 

STUDY MARX TO RESIST IMPERIALISM

Message of Solidarity to the Marx@200
Study Conference of the Institute of Political Economy

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International League of Peoples´ Struggle
June 13, 2018

 

On behalf of the International League of Peoples´ Struggle, I convey warmest greetings of solidarity to the Institute of Political Economy and to all the participants in this study conference to celebrate the 200th birth anniversary of Karl Marx. I congratulate the institute for its success in organizing this conference.

The theme of the conference correctly relates the teachings of Marx to the current conditions of the world capitalist system and to the urgent need for revolutionary change by the proletariat and the people: “Continuing relevance of Marx’s teachings in social movements and their struggles”.

The study of Marxism is indispensable for understanding the current status and crisis of global capitalism. It was Marx who first uncovered systematically the laws of motion of capitalism, how the capitalist class extracts surplus value from the working class in the process of social production, over-accumulates capital and shrinks the wage fund and thereby creates the crisis of overproduction relative to the purchasing power of the working people.

Credit may be resorted to bail out the corporations in distress and buoy up the economy but it merely accelerates the concentration and accumulation of capital in the hands of the few. In the name of free trade, the drive for colonial expansion is propelled. Free competition capitalism leads to monopoly capitalism. Old style colonialism leads to modern imperialism.

Marxism is not a fixed set of dogmas. It has been extended, developed and applied in correspondence to the emergence and growth of free competition capitalism to monopoly capitalism Thus, Leninism is Marxism in the era of modern imperialism and proletarian revolution. Further, Marxism-Leninism has been further extended, developed and enriched by Maoism in the face of modern revisionism and the danger of capitalist restoration in socialist countries.

The topics lined up for discussion in your study conference cover two necessary points: first, the correct analysis of global capitalism that lays the ground for changing the world and second, the process of changing the world to what is fundamentally better for humankind, socialism, through the anti-imperialist and democratic struggle of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples.

You start on the correct track by analyzing the role of investment liberalization and its impact on labor and production. The limits of abusing monopoly finance capital in order to override the recurrent and worsening crisis of overproduction and continue profit-making and the accumulation of superprofits are exposed by the excessive and unrepayable debts at the level of households, corporations and central banks. Since the financial meltdown of 2008, the economic and financial experts of the capitalist powers have been unable to overcome the prolonged stagnation and depression of the global economy.

The unbridled abuse of investment liberalization has been in combination with labor flexibilization and global subcontracting. The rapid overaccumulation of capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie has been at the expense of the working class which has been subjected to deprivation of job security, to wage freezes and to violation of trade union and other democratic rights. But the blowback is the now prolonged stagnation and depression of the global economy.

The monopoly capitalists have been able to manipulate to their advantage the reserve army of labor on a global scale and in nearly every country in the world. Moreover, they have used global subcontracting and outsourcing as well as compelling labor migration from the underdeveloped and impoverished countries to attain more intensified forms of exploitation by migrant workers who are deprived of democratic rights and are easier subjected to the worst forms of exploitation.

The adoption of higher technology, from the electro-mechanical processes of the industrial revolution to the current digital age of speedier systems of production and distribution, has enabled the unprecedented acceleration of the concentration and accumulation of monopoly capital, the higher organic composition of capital and diminution of wage income. It has led to the now severe economic and financial crisis and the prolonged depression of the global capitalist economy. As Marx pointed out a long a time ago, capitalism creates the conditions and diggers for its own burial.

Monopoly capitalism profits much from the cheap labor of the migrant workers. And the migrants who suffer from separation from their homelands and families are subjected to further suffering by being deprived of democratic rights and fair wages and being subjected to xenophobic, racist and fascist movements. But they are driven to seek international solidarity with their fellow migrant workers and the workers in the host countries.

The monopoly bourgeoisie makes all attempts at mass distraction to conceal or obscure the root causes of capitalist exploitation, socioeconomic crisis, political crisis, social discontent, disorder and wars of aggression, with outright reactionary propaganda as well as opportunism, reformism and revisionism .

But the global workers’ movement perseveres in struggle against the evils of monopoly capitalism under the leadership of Marxist-Leninist parties which uphold the red banner of proletarian internationalism and inspire the proletarian-socialist revolution in the world and in particular countries.

Contrary to its claims of developing the whole world under imperialist neoliberal globalization, monopoly capitalism has generated grossly uneven development, further enriching a few imperialist countries and impoverishing the majority of countries supplying cheap labor and cheap raw materials. In many underdeveloped countries of the world, where there are still significant vestiges of feudalism persisting, the working class and its revolutionary party strive to lead and generate the revolutionary peasant movement and the struggle for land reform.

They build the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry and ensure the mass mobilization of the overwhelming majority of the people, win over the urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie, and take advantage of the splits among the reactionary classes in order to isolate and destroy the power of the enemy, which is the most reactionary force and most servile to foreign monopoly capitalism.

There are huge sectors of society, such as the women and youth who if aroused, organized and mobilized like the basic exploited basic classes to take the revolutionary road can accelerate the advance of the revolutionary movement and the downfall of any regime or even the entire ruling system.

The broad masses of the people have suffered for so long from the US-instigated neoliberal policy of unbridled greed since the onset of the 1980s and from the neoconservative policy of stepping up war production and continuous wars of aggression since the full restoration of capitalism in the revisionist-ruled countries and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But such policies have also been far more costly than profitable to the US and has accelerated its strategic decline despite the passing phase of the US having become the sole superpower in a unipolar world from the end of the bipolar world of the Cold War in the 1991 upon the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, it has become obvious that the US has undermined its own global dominance by having financialized its economy and conceded consumer manufacturing to China and squandering at least USD 5.6 trillion in its wars of aggression. Now, there is conspicuously a multipolar world in which the US increasingly finds itself unable to decide global issues unilaterally and dictate on other capitalist powers.

The rise of new imperialist powers like China and Russia is aggravating the crisis of global capitalism. The inter-imperialist contradictions sharpen as the US tries to stop its strategic decline from the peak or primacy of the sole superpower and the new imperialist powers strive to obtain dominance. The intensification of the inter-imperialist contradictions are bringing about worse conditions of economic and financial crisis, oppression and exploitation and wars of aggression.

The broad masses of the people can never accept these conditions which inflict on them terrible and intolerable suffering. We are in a period of transition in which interimperialist contradictions and the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary currents are escalating. The economic crises and wars of global capitalism are pressing on the revolutionary proletariat and broad masses of the people to fight back.

We are therefore moving in the direction of the global resurgence of the revolutionary forces of the people and the advance of the movements for national liberation, democracy and socialism against imperialism, revisionism and reaction. We are living in an increasingly turbulent world of crises, social disorder and wars.

But the proletariat and people in the traditional and new imperialist countries and in the less developed and underdeveloped countries are resisting imperialism and reaction through various forms of social movements and revolutionary struggles. We are once more on the eve of great social upheavals and great revolutionary victories on an unprecedented scale in the people´s struggle for greater freedom, democracy and socialism against imperialism and all reaction.

Long live the memory and legacy of Karl Marx!

Long Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Carry forward the Philippine revolution!

Contribute to the advance of the world proletarian revolution!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

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Download as PDF file: JMS-2018-Study-Marx-to-Resist-Imperialism

 

 

 

 

 

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