We Can Do Better!

Are you tired of business as usual? Want to help millions of Americans learn about the real alternatives that already exist and how to be a part of them?

We know the current system does exactly what it was designed to do: line corporate pockets at the expense of real people’s health and livelihoods, destroying the environment and fueling the war machine at the same time. But we also know that another world is possible. Many models for more economically and ecologically sustainable societies exist and as the ills of the current system become more apparent to the country at large, people are hungry to know what viable alternatives exist. The Next System Teach-Ins aim to help communities and campuses across the country engage in that debate and start exploring the alternatives that work best for them.

The teach-ins can be a powerful component to a growing national debate about what this country really needs and how we get there. In a time of political stalemate, we have to take responsibility for the important conversations and build the community needed to transform this country.

Host a teach-in at your school or attend one near you to find out more. We'll provide sample curricula, agendas and workshop ideas based on existing alternatives, burgeoning initiatives and cutting edge research in order to help you create an engaging and effective teach-in that brings your community's work to the next level.

Make 'Em Pay!

Fight For Funding!

It Can Be Done!

During the 20th century, all kinds of revolutionary processes took place. Some of these revolutions were triumphant while others were defeated. The most important of these revolutionary processes was the Russian Revolution on October 25 - November in the Gregorian calendar during the Tsarist Empire.  Among some of the main topics of discussion amongst fighters and revolutionaries around the world are the characteristics, lessons and further development of the Russian Revolution.

In 1917, Russia was ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship of the Tsars. As a result of the feudal system under existence, millions of peasants lived in poverty, backwardness and ignorance. However, in some cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, there was a young industrial working class. Meanwhile, the tsarist empire was fighting in the First World War on the side of England and France.

During the war years, an untenable hardship affected the whole population in Russia in particular the masses of peasants and workers in the army who suffered the brunt of food scarcity and misery. In St. Petersburg, a growing discontent led to a successful insurrection which overthrew the Tsar. Afterwards, a weak provisional government led by Kerensky in an alliance formed  by the party of the Russian bourgeoisie and the conciliatory parties that led the workers and peasants such as the Mensheviks (reformist social democrats) and the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries. At the same time, democratic bodies of the masses, workers, soldiers and peasants in struggle (Soviets) which had first appeared in the 1905 Revolution, reemerged. By then, Bolshevik Party under the direction of Lenin and Trotsky was no longer in the minority and began to grow.

The Insurrection

The Provisional Government led by Kerensky did not address any of the serious problems that affected workers and peasants. In fact, Russia continued its involvement in the war, land was not being distributed to the peasantry, there was no bread in the cities and the government did not fulfill its election promises. Within the Soviets, popular discontent with the conciliatory parties was on the rise. Thus, the Bolshevik Party was becoming increasingly influential. By late September, the Bolshevik Party had among its ranks almost all of the Soviet delegates in St. Petersburg and Moscow and directed the main army regiments. In early October, the Bolshevik Party leadership came to the conclusion that the political conditions were ripe for the Soviets to overthrow Kerensky and take power. A section of the Social Revolutionary Party joined the insurrectionary plan. Lenin, living in an underground refuge in Finland, followed the events step by step while Trotsky led the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

On October 25, the Soviets took power. For the first time in history, a revolutionary government of workers and peasants which proclaimed the struggle for international socialism emerged out of the mobilization of the masses and workers’ democracy.

Early Years and Bureaucratization

Among some of the first actions taken by the Soviet government was the distribution of land, implementation of workers control in the factories and the creation of a long-delayed Constituent Assembly as well as Russia’s withdrawal from the imperialist war.

The Revolution was consolidating itself among those oppressed and exploited under the Tsarist regime. To crush the young Soviet republic, both the landed aristocracy and Russian bourgeoisie in alliance with imperialist powers started a bloody civil war. But the bourgeois counter-revolution was crushed thanks to the undaunted heroism of workers and peasants and the guidance of the Bolshevik Party by a principled leadership.

No other country produced a victory similar to the Russian Revolution in spite of a revolutionary wave that swept the rest of Europe. According to Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks, a Soviet Russia could only be maintained if it was part of a triumph of European and world socialist revolution.

However, the civil war weakened and isolated Russia, leading to a new political development when Stalin led a bureaucracy who had abandoned socialism and world revolution and destroyed workers’ democracy.

Lessons Of October

After Lenin’s death on January 1924, Trotsky continued to lead the resistance against Stalin while defending the program and the party of the world socialist revolution. In 1935, in 18th anniversary of the Revolution, Trotsky wrote that even though that first victory of socialism was completely swept and the Soviet Union (USSR) under Stalin was "almost unrecognizable" compared to the early years, the Revolution left invaluable experiences. "Loyalty to the revolutionary program, relentless hostility to the bourgeoisie, decisive break with the social patriots [the reformists of all kinds], and deep trust in the revolutionary force of the masses, these are the main lessons of October."

Are these lessons still valid today? Experience shows that they are indeed. The bourgeoisie sink the masses further into misery while conciliatory and reformist leaders betray workers and workers, peasants and all the oppressed are fighting and struggling all over the world. To end capitalism, and even to prevent it from returning in the hands of bureaucrats, it is necessary to defend the program and build the revolutionary party that allows for the definite triumph of socialism in every country and around the world, an internationalist and democratic socialism like the one that began to take its first steps in October 1917.

Article by Mercedes Petit

This Is A Working System!

"There’s this misguided myth that unions and management don’t get along. It’s a business bottom-line issue. Right-to-work is going to compromise my quality, my competitiveness. The unions are my partner. They’re almost like a screening agency. This is a working system. I have never understood this right-to-work agenda." -Bill Kennedy, Rock Road Companies

From Fate Of The Union (NY Times, June 2015)

Victory In LA

"Tuesday’s vote to raise Los Angeles’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 is being called “the most significant victory so far” in the push to increase the minimum wage nationally. The City Council passed the ordinance 14-1, which will boost the current minimum of $9 in roughly $1 increments annually over the next five years. The first increase would happen in July 2016, boosting minimum wage to $10.50 an hour."

From The Atlantic, May 19th

Rise With Workers, Not Rise From Them

"Ten thousand times the labor movement has stumbled and bruised itself. We have been enjoined by the courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, traduced by the press, frowned upon in public opinion, and deceived by politicians. But not withstanding all this and all these, labor is today the most vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its historic mission is as certain of ultimate realization as is the setting of the sun."

Never Forget The 145

"On March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory in New York City burned, killing 145 workers. It is remembered as one of the most infamous incidents in American industrial history, as the deaths were largely preventable — most of the victims died as a result of neglected safety features and locked doors within the factory building. The tragedy brought widespread attention to the dangerous sweatshop conditions of factories, and led to the development of a series of laws and regulations that better protected the safety of workers."

Quote excerpted from History.com

Revolution Is Inevitable!

"The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers, the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labour... Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals."

Excerpted from Albert Einstein's Why Socialism (Monthly Review, May 1949)

Photograph of Washington Square Park by Nancy Cricco (NYU Archives, 1980)

Low Pay Is Not Okay!

Fight For 15!

"According to a new analysis from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the CEOs of America's top 25 restaurant corporations, including McDonald's, Burger King, the Cheesecake Factory, Chipotle, and Jack in the Box, took home an average of 721 times the money minimum-wage workers did, and 194 times the take-home pay of the typical American worker in a production or nonsupervisory job. Restaurants and food services employ nearly half of all American workers who earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour (or less)."

Quote from Mother Jones (July 14th, 2014)

Workers Unite For A Fair Workplace!

"We work at Guitar Center and we are organizing across the country to improve wages and working conditions for all Guitar Center employees.

We love our jobs and our passion is helping our customers achieve their musical dreams. But we often have trouble making ends meet, thanks to the low wages and fluctuating hours we receive. We are asked to do many non-selling tasks which hurt our commissions, sales workers do not receive sick days, health benefits are expensive and part timers are not even offered them.

It’s been an exciting year for the Guitar Center campaign: workers in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas have successfully organized a union at their workplaces, over 100 bands and artists have endorse the campaign, and tens of thousands of people have signed petitions supporting us.

However, the company has responded by refusing to give us a fair contract and has launched an aggressive campaign to bust the union. The company's last offer is even less than what non-union stores have and is meant to punish us for standing up for ourselves. Our union has been forced to file charges detailing the company’s bad faith negotiating and union busting.

We now say: enough is enough! We are asking the public to support us as we enter the final stages of negotiations! Sign the petition to help us get a fair contract."

I Hate The Capitalist System

"I hate the capitalist system,

And I'll tell you the reason why:

It has caused me so much suffering,

And my dearest friends to die."

An Emancipating Sun

"The working class must get rid of the whole brood of masters and exploiters, and put themselves in possession and control of the means of production, that they may have steady employment without consulting a capitalist employer, large or small, and that they may get the wealth their labor produces, all of it, and enjoy with their families the fruits of their industry in comfortable and happy homes, abundant and wholesome food, proper clothing and all other things necessary to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It is therefore a question not of "reform," the mask of fraud, but of revolution. The capitalist system must be overthrown, class-rule abolished and wage-slavery supplanted by the cooperative industry."

From Outlook for Socialism In The United States, 1900

Every Worker Deserves A Living Wage

Social and economic inequality in the US has reached historic proportions. The top 1% increased their income following capitalism’s Great Recession while the overwhelming majority of working people are still struggling or are even worse off than before. The movement for a minimum wage of $15/hour is an expression this enormous problem of inequality. The support for the fast food workers actions for $15 showed that the aspirations of Occupy to fight against poverty and inequality are alive and growing among millions.

15 Now was launched in January of 2014 by Seattle City Council Member, Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative to fight for a $15 minimum wage in Seattle. 15 Now chapters quickly spread across the country. It is a campaign that anyone can join and help build.

Keep On Keepin' On!

"The only thing workers have to bargain with is their skill or their labor. Denied the right to withhold it as a last resort, they become powerless. The strike is therefore not a breakdown of collective bargaining — it is the indispensable cornerstone of that process."

Quote from a Canadian Federation Of Labour publication, 1979

The Long Revolution

"It is our basic case, in this manifesto, that the separate campaigns in which we have been active, and the separate issues with which we have all been concerned, run back, in their essence to a single political system and its alternatives. We believe that the system we now oppose can only survive by a willed separation of issues, and the resulting fragmentation of consciousness. Our own first position is that all the issues, industrial and political, international and domestic, economic and cultural, humanitarian and radical, are deeply connected; that what we oppose is a political, economic and social system, that what we work for is a different whole society." -from The May Day Manifesto, 1967

"This is a language of socialist aspiration which is today scarcely uttered. At a time when many are coming to see that the triumph of neoliberalism — an unfettered version of capitalism — has come at enormous economic, social and environmental cost, it seems to me that The May Day Manifesto deserves to be read again as a contribution to the project of inspiring a concerted resistance to the system that now dominates much of the world." -from The May Day Manifesto, 1968 edition

Download: The May Day Manifesto

Stop The Trans-Pacific Partnership!

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a secretive agreement being negotiated behind closed doors by government bureaucrats and more than 600 corporate lobbyists. It threatens everything we care about: democracy, human rights, workers' rights, the environment, healthcare, freedom of speech, and the Internet... All in the name of so-called "free trade."

A Collective Struggle

"This International Women's Day, we are highlighting the importance of achieving equality for women and girls not simply because it is a matter of fairness and fundamental human rights, but because the progress in so many other areas depends on it... Countries with more gender equality have better economic growth. Companies with more women leaders perform better. Peace agreements that include women are more durable. Parliaments with more women enact more legislation on key social issues such as health, education, anti-discrimination and child support. The evidence is clear: equality for women means progress for all." -Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General

Beneficial Constraints

"[Harley Davidson] knew it had to keep employing members of the International Association of Machinists and United Steelworkers, who were paid far more than nonunion workers in the South and several multiples of the going rate in Mexico. The company could only compete by redesigning the production system so that each worker created more value than they cost … Harley’s very existence was in question in 2009. Today it is a manufacturing role model, and that has a lot to do with its workers. The average tenure of a line worker at the York plant is 18 years, and these workers are extremely devoted to the company … Costs have fallen by $100 million at the plant and quality has improved even more significantly." -Adam Davidson, Building A Harley Faster

The blog post's title — also referenced in the article quoted — refers to a concept developed by Wolfgang Streeck which encourages the development of a long-term cooperative relationship between employers and their employees.

"Where words leave off, music begins."

Pete Seeger

Rest In Paradise

"Decade after decade. Singing and agitating and inspiring the children and the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of those who had heard him singing the songs of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in 1938, or serenading Eleanor Roosevelt in 1944, or accompanying Henry Wallace’s presidential campaign in 1948. The hundreds of Occupy Wall Street activists who joined Seeger on a thirty-five-block march through Manhattan in Octover 2011 knew that he was seventy years older than they were, but he was one of them." -John Nichols, The Nation