Post Tax-Bill: Let’s Get Down To Business

A lot of debate over political and economic issues surrounding the latest GOP tax bill has flooded social media, news outlets, and propaganda outlets lately. It’s certainly troubling to think about; “cost-cutting” legislation that doesn’t pay for itself has historically had disastrous effects on the working class and on the economy as a whole. To make matters worse, the bill is a barely disguised christmas present of millions of dollars to large corporations, lobbyists, and the richest Americans who pushed this bill through the republican party. I’m sure by now you’ve figured out that this bill is going to be even more disastrous than the failed tax cut bills from previous administrations. The income inequality in America has become a horrendous giant that continues to grow day by day, and Donald Trump is about to feed it steroids. While the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, the structure of our capitalist system is quietly teetering on the brink of collapse. When the next economic crash arrives, several extremely dangerous deficit bubbles like student loan debt, unfunded pensions, healthcare costs, and many others are going to pop at once. However, the most damaging of these bubbles is arguably the growing income inequality gap. It’s simple math, we cannot continue with this broken system. The rich are literally running out of wealth to steal from the working class.

Even now we see minimum wage jobs not yielding enough wealth to afford even the most basic of family needs like housing, food, and education. When the poor and working class can no longer be monetarily exploited, the last block at the base of the economic jenga tower will be pulled. The economy will tank like it never has before, and the tax overhaul has just accelerated this process tenfold. This issue coupled with the fact that our planet is entering self destruct mode makes our future seem very grim indeed.

The incredibly irresponsible actions of government officials in Washington have certainly set future generations up for failure. The exploitation of the working class has been written into law yet again, but we didn’t need it to be law for us to know it is already widespread. Institutions like consumerism, the market economy, racism, wage slavery, labor laws, and lobbying have already made inequality as American as baseball. I think it will be very interesting to see how the government reacts when the wealth gap reaches its climax. Our elected officials will be forced to choose between allowing a full-blown crisis to unfold or dramatically change the structure of American society and our “free market.”

Since capitol hill has repeatedly shown its ability to be sold out and used as a tool by elites, we cannot trust them to do the right thing in such a dire situation. Who knows what kind of deal corporate elites would attempt to barter with politicians in order to save their fortune, all we know is that it will be very ugly. Even if the government decided to bail out the people, it would be furiously debated in the house and senate as to how to carry out such a task. It’s not like reshaping the United States is the most partisan issue anyway. It would likely take weeks for Washington to make a semi-competent solution and even then it might not actually be a solution. The point is, it will be out of the peoples control as to what to do next, which is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Allowing a broken government to make decisions for all citizens in such a desperate time is irresponsible and dangerous. By the looks of how quickly the government is becoming incompetent, they may not even be capable of making any decisions.

To say a regime change is necessary would be obvious. Anarchists and other leftist activists have been saying that for years, I’m just the latest. Even though a “revolution” might prevent the impending collapse of American society, this will probably not happen. The apathy of many Americans along with our unbelievable ignorance prevents us time and time again to fix what’s broken. The possibility of regime change will arise only when our nation falls. It is imperative that the people and the working class decide what the appropriate change is. If not, exploitation is bound to continue for years to come. We would be fools not to take this opportunity, even though the opportunity comes in the form of crisis.

What worries me is that I don’t see a strong movement among the left that proposes a viable alternative to the system we currently operate. Yes, we have seen a surge of young voters preferring a socialist system, but this surge is mostly subjective. The new wave of mostly college-aged “social democrats” worship Bernie Sanders and advocate for social justice, equality, opportunity and democracy, all of which are important things. Guess what? It isn’t enough.

They still operate under the machine of capitalism, which feeds off of inequality, racism and suppression, and Bernie Sanders is still a capitalist. These young voters also probably have very different definitions of socialism, and since they actually vote I assume they think socialism can be established though our current legislative means. Let me give them a warning: it can’t. There is no way in hell the legislative branch of the United States would adopt socialist policies that are sufficient to solve the issues we face. It’s just not going to happen, even if the government was totally controlled by limousine liberals.

The newest popular left-wing surge is unorganized, not unified, and simply not sufficient. What we need is a strong movement that is unified in its specific beliefs, is composed of and represents the interests of the working class, rejects capitalism, respects human rights, and works exclusively for the public good. This will not be easy, and that is why we need to start having a more serious dialogue now.

So that is my call, it’s time to start getting really serious about this. If mother nature graces us with enough time to make it to the last failure of American crony capitalism, we need to be able to mobilize quickly and effectively. Spearheading a regime change is no easy task, especially when you’ve been oppressed and exploited for hundreds of years, but I think it’s possible. It is crucial that we start talking about this immediately, we need to get a lot more working people from a diverse set of backgrounds on board in order for this to work.

We need to start actively planting the seeds for grassroots movements now so that it can have time to grow and develop at the national level. A coordinated collection of grassroots movements across the country could be an imposing political presence nationwide while staying tailored to worker’s interests at the local level. The bottom-up structure of these organizations would also directly translate to the structure of the ideal labor union. When the dog-eat-dog system begins to fall, our collectives can rise. If society is going to be transformed on ever level of it’s existence, we cannot afford it to be transformed by the same elites who have deprived us for decades.

If nothing else is achieved, the working class must be liberated to it’s full collectivized potential. Failure to do so would result in another round in the cycle of oppression. For now, awareness, education, and activism is the best way to begin constructing a powerful movement with the people’s support. Spreading information, having discussions, and actively gaining a support network should be our goals. Everyone can play a role by organizing in your community and talking to people with an open mind. What we have right now is a good start, but we can make a lot more progress. Nobody can say how much time we have (or don’t have) before things begin to fall apart. In order to have the necessary capacity to prevent utter chaos, we need to start acting now.