Class Struggle

August 1, 2023

The Revolutionary Power of Love

Because desire is a social construct, love desired is a collective action toward our liberation. We desire life-giving and honest love. We desire liberation. Karl Marx once stated that our consciousness comes through experience as social beings. Capitalism is not only a political and economic system as most people understand it, but also permeates and colonizes our daily lives as a social structure. As such, we strive to build community, and mostly in the form of “family”. As M.E. O’Brien states in Family Abolition Capitalism and the Communizing of Care, “oftentimes we feel as though we have found it.” Under capitalism, though, we are prevented from constructing the family we need.

June 5, 2023

by Tina Trutanich

The People vs. Capitalism

May 31, 2023

by Zack Frailey Escobar

(Mal)entender la derrota: una respuesta a Jacobin sobre el proceso constitucional chileno

Tras años de intensas protestas y revueltas conocidas como el “estallido social”, los chilenos votaron a favor de escribir una nueva Constitución en octubre de 2020 por un margen del 78% frente al 22%. La “Convención Constitucional” elegida como resultado de este referéndum estaba dominada por representantes de la izquierda. Parecía inevitable que la reaccionaria constitución impuesta por el ex-dictador Augusto Pinochet iba a ser sustituida por una de las constituciones más progresistas del mundo, que garantiza diversos derechos sociales

May 29, 2023

by Zack Frailey Escobar

(Mis)Understanding Defeat: a reply to Jacobin on the Chilean constitutional process

After years of intense protests and upheavals known as the estallido social (social outburst), Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in October of 2020 by a margin of 78 percent to 22 percent. The Constitutional Convention elected as a result of this referendum was dominated by left wing representatives. It seemed inevitable that the reactionary constitution imposed by former dictator Augusto Pinochet would be replaced by one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, which guaranteed a variety of social rights and recognized indigenous autonomy. Instead, the final draft was dramatically voted down in a second referendum in September of 2022. Now, a new body has been elected to replace the failed Constitutional Convention, this time dominated by the far-right Republican Party. It is essential for the global left to learn from this catastrophic turn of events, but a recent article by comrade Marcelo Casals in Jacobin and Jacobin America Latina draws some mistaken conclusions.

May 26, 2023

by Sara Garcia Molina and Guadalupe Camarillo

#TenantStories: Guadalupe’s Testimonio

Guadalupe’s eyes had been on her cup of coffee for a while, but her mind wandered elsewhere, away from the rising aromatic steam. Like every day, her main concern was finding a permanent job, one where you don’t feel adrift and always wonder how you’re going to pay the rent. That constant anguish was overwhelming and exhausting, and sometimes that same anxiety led her to depression, but Guadalupe knew that she could not give up or lock herself in her house to suffer her misery, her children needed food and a roof.

May 8, 2023

by Justin Akers Chacón

The American Way of Fascism

We are living through a period of reemergence, rise, and surge of far right and fascist forces internationally. This includes reconstructed fascist political parties and movements from the past, alongside novel and neo-fascist formations taking shape inside capitalist states and electoral systems in the present.
The miasma of fascist regeneration emanates from within the cascading crises of the capitalist system, increasing in both depth and frequency over the last two decades. This crises include recurring episodes of recession and stagnation; imperialist and inter-imperial conflict and war; distress, weakening, and collapse of traditional bourgeois political parties; and the rising frequency and intensity of class struggle, authoritarianism, culminating in both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements.

April 24, 2023

by Puntorojo Editorial Collective

Urgency for Resistance: Interview with Madison Abortion and Reproductive Rights Coalition for Healthcare (MARRCH)

On July 4th of 2022, there was a very large gathering at the state capitol in Madison, and there was a speak-out, inviting community members to come up and speak on a bullhorn about how Roe v Wade being overturned had affected their reproductive rights, fertility, and just life in general. And they shared stories that were very personal. The organizers there had passed around a notebook asking for those serious about joining a social movement or creating a social movement to put their name and email or phone number in there so that they could follow up later.

March 19, 2023

by Bill V. Mullen

Ready to Strike at Rutgers! Interview with Rutgers University union leaders

Faculty at Rutgers University in New Jersey, one of the oldest public universities in the United States, are preparing to strike. Last week two faculty bargaining units, one comprised of full-time faculty and one of part-time, both voted by overwhelming majority in favor of a strike to create a living wage across campus for all teachers; to bring all faculty into the same bargaining unit; to undermine racism and sexism in the University labor hierarchy; and to push back against the University’s corporate, neoliberal agenda: https://rutgersaaup.org/our-members-h…

The two Rutgers Unions, AAUP-AFT, and the Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union, are also practicing what the Union calls “fighting for the common good.” Their demands against the University include a call for a freeze on housing rates on all Rutgers-owned properties, a call for student debt forgiveness, and attention to creation of a “beloved community” in and around Rutgers campuses in the multiracial, working-class cities of New Brunswick, Camden and Newark: https://rutgersaaup.org/take-the-pled…

March 3, 2023

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Crisis in Peru: a Marxist analysis

On December 7th, Peru’s embattled head of state, the left-populist Pedro Castillo, declared a state of emergency and called for Congress to be dissolved and replaced with a newly elected constituent assembly, which would draft a new constitution. The same day, the Peruvian Congress voted to impeach Castillo. After the impeachment, Castillo was arrested on charges of sedition and treason and his vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed office. The vast majority of Peruvians oppose the impeachment and arrest of Castillo and hundreds of thousands have gone on strike, protested, and set up blockades to resist the power grab of the Congress and Boluarte.

To date, the police and military have murdered at least 47 demonstrators. Boluarte and her new right wing allies want to hold new elections in the midst of rampant political repression under the guise of “restoring democracy”, but the protesters are demanding a new constitution will transform the state itself and deliver real democracy to Peru.

November 14, 2022

by Atlee McFellin

The Quantum Mechanics of Imminent Revolution

This article concludes a three-part series meant to explore a more sensuous, suffering, and passionate materialism rooted in quantum mechanics. The three articles are a continuation of a longer series that has attempted to articulate a revolutionary communist politics, one that learns from the failures of the German left against the Nazis, while paying particular attention to the voices of Marxists who were also Jewish and experienced the rise and rule of fascism first-hand. All this is meant to provide strategic direction in hopes of defeating a possible quasi constitutional fascist coup around the November 2024 elections, then on to our own path towards revolution thereafter.