Overthrowing Capitalist Globalization

How will the revolution in the U.S. help overthrow of capitalist globalization? How will the revolutionary movement in the U.S. help end the long-standing crimes of the current world order: including the domination of one nation by another, the exploitation of whole regions of the world, exploitation of natural resources, environmental rape and the robbery of unequal trade?

The following excerpts from the Draft Programme of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA. The full text is posted on the Programme section of the discussion website

The New Socialist Economy
Part 1, Section II. Reconfiguring a Formerly Imperialist Economy

Imperialism is based on global relations of exploitation and great-power domination. These relations lead to widening inequality, growing hunger and poverty, distortion of the national economies of the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and vast environmental degradation. The U.S. accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population but consumes 25 percent of the world’s mineral, metal, and other material resources, and 30 percent of the world’s energy resources.

A genuine socialist economy cannot be built in a country like the U.S. without shattering its former international economic relations. Nor can it be built without bending every effort to promote and support the struggle to remake the world as a whole through revolution.

The proletariat in power will face a great challenge. It must create a new economy that does not rest on exploitation. It must ensure that this economy does not become dependent on foreign trade and, as a result, become entangled in the economic and financial arrangements of what remains of the imperialist world economy. And just as importantly, it must ensure that the economy it builds does not reproduce relations of international domination.

What are some of the key principles that will guide this process?

First, the socialist state will exercise firm control over all channels of foreign trade. Upon coming to power, the proletariat will liquidate all international holdings and investments. The socialist economy will not export capital. It will not engage in foreign investment: it will not build factories or make loans for profit. The new state will immediately cut links and ties with imperialist economic institutions like the World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO) and will expose their crimes and wage struggle against such institutions.

Self-Reliance

Second, in developing the economy, the socialist society will rely principally on its own material resources and capabilities—first and foremost, the collective understanding and conscious activism of the masses.

The structure of production and the resource base of the economy will no longer depend on labor and materials from other countries, much less exploitation, domination, and gunboat extortion. To take two examples: parts and components will no longer be contracted out to manufacturing firms in the maquiladora and export-processing zones of Mexico and East Asia; and the economy will no longer rely on huge inflows of oil from abroad.

Will this give full throttle to extravagant use of domestic resources in order to maintain the patterns of production and consumption that prevailed in the old economy?

No, it means that, from the very beginning, the shift towards self-reliance will require resource conservation and the radical overhauling of production practices. Steps will be taken immediately to move away from a wasteful and environmentally destructive oil-based economy.

Self-reliance also requires the restructuring of the old industrial economy and the step-by-step creation of a different kind of industrial economy: one that will meet production and consumption needs more efficiently and one that will produce a different mix of output (not more automobiles, but safe and efficient mass transit).

These changes will affect consumption standards of the new society. People’s most basic needs will be met, and the new economy will strive to produce a rational variety of consumer goods. But the "convenience" of having Indonesian workers cater to athletic clothing needs, or peasants in other parts of the world cater to upscale coffee sensibilities, will be no more. The new economy will rupture with relations that produce privileges on the one side and immiseration on the other.

This orientation must become a conscious one throughout society. It will require mass education. At the same time, people’s social needs will change with the transformation of social life. There will not be the obsession with consumption, the need to define oneself on the basis of what and how much one consumes.

International Economic Relations

Proletarian internationalism comes first in all economic relations.

With the other socialist states that exist or come into being, trade will be carried out under the principles of equality and proletarian internationalism, to aid the construction of socialism in these countries and the world revolution.

Trade policies will also have to be developed toward imperialist and other reactionary states. But the new state will not put economic agreements and exchanges with other countries above its responsibility to support revolutionary movements in these countries. In some cases, in order to support the class struggle in these countries and internationally, the socialist state will refuse to carry out trade with them, or refuse to trade in some items.

The new socialist economy will end all imperialist relations with other countries, especially those previously dominated and oppressed by U.S. imperialism. The debts owed by Third World countries to the banking institutions and government agencies of the old economy will be canceled. All unequal trade treaties will be repudiated.

At the same time, the new state will meet its obligations. For instance, it will provide technical and financial assistance for helping to clean up and reverse environmental damage. It will also continue to deliver spare parts, equipment, and so forth to countries which the U.S. imperialists had made dependent on them but which may still require external supplies.

This will have to be done in accordance with the overall international situation and the conditions that the socialist state itself faces at a given time—including whether the new state is forced to defend itself against actual military attack from remaining imperialist and reactionary states and how far it has progressed in meeting the most basic and urgent needs of the masses in the country. Furthermore, in dealing with matters of supplies and assistance to countries that U.S. imperialism formerly dominated, the socialist state must also factor in the nature of these countries, the class struggle within them, and their role internationally.

As for so-called "intellectual property rights." The class-conscious proletariat stands opposed to them and the new socialist state will tear up all such property rights carried over from the old society.

The fruits of imperialism’s lopsided research and development apparatus, which drains scientific talent from around the world, especially the poor nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, will be made available to the people of the world. Scientific knowledge will be shared, and no longer will medicines and so forth be "protected" by patent and royalty, and priced to be out of reach to those who so desperately need them.

Class Struggle in Command

The socialist state will enter into trade relations with other countries. But such trade, both on the export and import side, must be secondary to self-reliant growth. Overdependence on trade will undermine the foundations of a balanced and integrated economy. It will also unleash and strengthen old and new bourgeois class forces in socialist society. Such forces will push for policies to maximize commercial gain in international economic relations. They will seek class allies internationally. And they will "make the case" to sections of people that there are great material "benefits" to be had from international engagement.

All this opens the door to emergent neocolonial relations (and the restoration of capitalism) and will be a focus of class struggle under socialism.

The socialist state stands for trade relations based on mutual benefit and equality. But non-socialist countries, especially the remaining imperialists, will not adhere to this policy simply because the socialist state proclaims it. They will seek to carry out trade on unequal terms and as a means for gaining leverage.

The socialist state will have to wage struggle to force the imperialist and reactionary states to conduct trade on different terms. At the same time, the new state may also find itself in a situation of having to break imperialist embargoes and blockades that cause damage to certain sectors of the socialist economy. Only to the degree that the socialist state is promoting and supporting revolutionary struggle throughout the world will it be able to achieve these ends.

There will be much destruction and dislocation involved in the revolutionary war to overthrow U.S. imperialism. Still, the proletariat will "inherit" vast and highly developed technology and productive forces that are, to a significant degree, the fruit of exploitation and plunder carried out over decades and centuries of imperialist domination and colonial conquest throughout the world.

The proletariat in power must utilize these productive forces first and above all to advance the world revolution toward the aim of overcoming all exploitative and unequal relations in the world, including the "great divide" between the imperialist and colonial (or neocolonial) countries.

Related issues are discussed in the following section of Part 2

Internationalism and International Relations

The outlook of the revolutionary proletariat and its vanguard party is and must be internationalism, not nationalism. The fundamental allegiance of the proletariat is not to any one nation but to the cause of the world proletarian revolution….

The proletariat in the United States has a great responsibility and a great mission: to carry out a revolution which, once victorious, will mean the defeat and elimination of a monstrous international exploiter and oppressor, justly hated by masses of people all over the globe. When this revolution succeeds, hundreds of millions worldwide will rejoice and will step up their own revolutionary struggles….

It is a point of fundamental orientation that the revolutionary struggle in every country must be waged as part of the world proletarian revolution. And wherever the proletariat seizes power, it must build its new socialist state as, above all, a base area for this worldwide revolution.

Internationalist Policies of the New Socialist State

With the seizure of power by the proletariat through revolutionary war, the new socialist state arising on the ashes of U.S. imperialism will base itself on the principles of proletarian internationalism. While the exact application of these principles will depend on specific world conditions, some fundamental points can be set forth now.

The proletariat in power will renounce all wars of aggression and plunder in word and deed. Having defeated the U.S. imperialists in war, the proletariat will move immediately and decisively to bring about the surrender and dismantling of any remnants of the armed forces of imperialism and counter-revolution that might remain in the new socialist territory. And it will do everything possible to bring about, in all parts of the world, the dismantling of any remaining armed forces and military bases of the former U.S. imperialist state….

The proletarian state will renounce all imperialist alliances, such as NATO. It will break all ties with institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and other vehicles of imperialist domination. All secret treaties and agreements made by the imperialists to serve their plunder and wars will be made public.

The socialist state will immediately cancel all unequal treaties and end all colonial relationships, direct or indirect, with other nations.

Before the seizure of power, the revolutionary proletariat in the U.S. will support the people of Puerto Rico in the struggle to cast off U.S. domination and in particular to take advantage of any serious crisis of U.S. imperialism to break its grip on their country. Upon the seizure of power, Puerto Rico will be immediately freed—that is, if the Puerto Rican people have not already won their liberation. Likewise, control over Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands will be relinquished, and measures will be taken to assist in overcoming the destructive legacy of U.S. colonial rule…

As a tactical measure the socialist state may establish state-to-state relations with reactionary regimes. It may carry out trade and so on with these countries, maneuvering in this arena to defend the gains of the revolution, to develop the socialist economy, and so on. But this must always be done on the basis of revolutionary principle and in particular must be subordinate to supporting revolutionary struggles throughout the world, including in the countries with which state-to-state relations have been established.

Policy Towards Borders

For the class-conscious proletariat, there is nothing sacred about the existing territory and borders of the U.S., which were carved out through mass murder and wholesale robbery by the ruling class. The proletariat within the U.S. will strive to liberate as much of that territory as possible, while encouraging and assisting revolution in other parts of North America and in Mexico in particular.

Ultimately new borders will be established. Their location and character will depend on several factors, but most essentially on the development and outcome of the revolutionary struggles on the continent, on the need to defend the rule of the proletariat wherever it has been established, and, above all, on what most serves the further advance of the proletarian revolution, not only in this particular part of the world but in the world as a whole….

A Focus of Struggle in the New Socialist Society

History has shown that the correct handling of the contradiction between the need to build and defend the existing socialist state(s) and the need to promote the advance of the world revolution has proven to be an extremely difficult problem.

For this reason, whether or not to adhere to the policies set out above, and the basic orientation of putting the interests of the world revolution first, will be a focus of sharp struggle in socialist society, including right within the leadership of the party and the state.

As long as capitalism and exploitation exist in any country, this will be a base for the bourgeoisie in its attempts to defeat the working class, even where it has seized power, and to impose capitalist rule everywhere, restoring it where it has been overthrown. And wherever capitalism rules and maintains backwardness, it stands as a great barrier to the people in all countries in transforming society and developing the rational use of the world’s resources and productive forces for the common good of the masses and ultimately all of humanity.

The international proletariat can emancipate itself only by emancipating all humanity; it can achieve communism only by eliminating the rule of capital, the chains of exploitation, and the scars of class-divided society everywhere. Our aim is to "conquer the world."