MARXIST CENTER POINTS OF UNITY
Adopted on December 2, 2018
After years of dormancy, the working class movement has woken from its slumber. In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the liberal-democratic illusions of the post-Cold War Consensus were shattered.
At this key juncture in the reawakening of the working class, we the undersigned gather together in order to collectively affirm the necessity of establishing a socialist current which unapologetically and openly advocates revolution, practices and advocates the broadest and most thoroughgoing democracy possible, and critically appraises past attempts to establish socialism while recognizing the necessity to break with past dogmas and develop revolutionary analysis which maps onto existing conditions
- Commit to building institutions of and for the working class, using local organizing to unite the workers of the world to execute the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Understand the working class as a diverse and varied class that encompasses both productive and reproductive workers. Commit to the access of all people to our organizing spaces, communiciations, and documents, including language accessibility, prioritization of work schedules, and the accommodation of physical needs, disabilities, children, and transportation needs.
- Support the creation and growth of solidarity unions towards the aim of a unified labor movement, while working towards revolutionizing existing unions towards this end.
- Acknowledge and educate about the conditions existing for the proletariat and work towards their dismantling and liberation of all people through the foundation of socialist principles. Recognize capitalism’s role in perpetuating racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic violence, while simultaneously recognizing that these forms of oppression and marginalization result from material divisions of labor and serve to reinforce class society. Fight against privilege and oppressive behavior within the working class.
- Reject the strategy of administering or reforming capitalism and recognize that the capitalist state can never be made to serve the interests of the working class as a whole. Work against the interests of the capitalist state even if holding government office.
- Fight for the reorganization of the economy in line with socialist principles. Demand and organize democratic worker control over the means of production and the state.
- Support democratic self-government by the working class in all spheres of collective life, including the empowerment, support, and self-determination of oppressed people.
- Oppose and refuse compromise with all forms of US settler-colonialism, imperialism, and domination. Oppose the exploitation of countries affected by colonialism by the imperialist core. Recognize that the United States is a settler-colonial entity. Support the complete emancipation, decolonization, and self-determination of Indigenous and oppressed people. Work within the core to undermine imperialist development, and achieve reparations in the global south.
- Work towards developing historical materialist analysis and strategies rather than basing tactics on inherited dogmas. Recognize that Marxist analysis requires investigation into the constantly changing dynamics of capitalism.
- Recognize that climate change caused by capitalism constitutes an existential threat to all life, to the working class, and to the people of the world. Commit to a socialist/communist politics that is fundamentally ecological. Commit to supporting specific environmental struggles when they occur in our areas.
- Recognize that we can not make use of the ready-made machinery of the capitalist state. Work towards the abolition of police, prisons, and all related systems of capitalist state violence, oppression, control, and surveillance. Work towards building democratic alternatives for our class, including transformative justice.
- Commit to the self-defense of all vulnerable, marginalized, and working class communities.