Class Struggle

January 13, 2020

Opening the border through class struggle and solidarity

North American capitalism has been transformed into two over-lapping, yet starkly contradictory realities for capital and labor. Nowhere is this more apparent than through observation of what has taken place between the United States and Mexico over the last three decades. Through the aegis of the state, its two major political parties, and its junior counterparts across national boundaries, the US capitalist class has transformed the region into a singular borderless economy for capital.

Integration in this form has been accomplished through what are mischaracterized as “free-trade agreements” (FTAs). These were imposed under authoritarian conditions. Freedom was conspicuously absent when FTAs were dictated to the Mexican people during economic crisis as conditional in exchange for emergency loans. These “structural adjustment programs” required by outside entities such as the International Monetary

October 20, 2019

by Blas Reies

La situación mexicana en los Estados Unidos

La intención de este artículo es dar una breve mirada a la vida de las y los mexicanos en Estados Unidos actualmente. También se darán a conocer algunos aspectos de la vida de otros grupos en EE. UU., tales como las personas Latinas como conjunto, personas centroamericanas, negras, blancas y asiáticas. No me adentraré en detalle acerca de muchos aspectos pero espero poder hacerlo en futuros artículos. Ojalá que los siguientes hechos puedan plantear preguntas que lleven a discusiones fructíferas.

August 8, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

Announcing puntorojo

Puntorojo is a digital magazine that publishes voices and viewpoints of Mexicanx, Chicanx, Latinx, transborder and transnational radicals. This includes workers, scholars, activists, artivists, historians, and other commentators whose historical experiences and perspectives are shaped by the effects of U.S. imperialist intervention and domination across the Americas, and resistance to all oppressive aspects of capitalism and imperialism that manifest in daily life. This struggle—the class struggle—is reaching a turning point. We are in an epoch of global crisis, conflict, reaction, and potential transformation.

The working classes and oppressed peoples across the Americas are in motion against the destructive and exploitative economic system of capitalism and the political forces that maintain it internationally. This arrangement, referred to here as imperialism, is administered by the US state and its ruling class allies and enforcers across the region. It promotes and props up corrupt dictatorships and fascist regimes that uphold Its objectives, while also attempting to overthrow non-compliant governments through coup, invasion, economic blockade and sabotage, and by giving direct material support to reactionary opposition groups and movements.

August 2, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

The Mexican condition in the US

As of the 2010 census, there were 31,798,258 Mexicans in the U.S., out of a total population of 308,745,538 and out of a total Latino population of 50,477,594. Mexicans make up 10.1% of the total population in this country and 62.9% of Latinos. Most Mexicans live in the Southwest, 46.5% of Latinos are in California and Texas alone, an area that used to be part of Mexico.

Of the 31 million Mexicans in the U.S., 11.7 million were born in Mexico. In 2010, the average median earnings for them was $23,810, lower than the average of $33,130 for foreign born residents in the U.S. The percentage of these Mexicans living in poverty was 29%, higher than the national average of 10% and the national average for foreign born residents, which was 17%. 54% of immigrants from Mexico had less than a high school education, which is more than the national average of 9% and the national average for all foreign born of 27%. The percentage of Mexicans immigrants without a high school diploma was higher than for immigrants from Asia, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Central America.

Of these Mexican immigrants, 4.9 million were undocumented in 2017, a drop from 6.9 million ten years earlier. The significant numbers of immigrants deported under Obama is in large part responsible for this decrease in numbers of undocumented Mexicans in the U.S. Over half (53%) of these immigrants live in California and Texas, with 10% living in Los Angeles County alone.

August 1, 2019

by Julian Guerrero

A base building primer for the socialist movement

Millions of people are coming to radical conclusions over the nature of the social problems they face. The deceptive promises of the free market to rationally organize social life is falling apart in the neoliberal wasteland people find themselves in. And this is powering the resurgence of interest towards socialist politics and the growth of a new, if still modest socialist movement.

The growth of interest in socialism and the number socialist activists has raised a series of strategic paths towards reconnecting the politics of socialism with the working class. This is necessary because if one were to survey the current socialist movement they would notice the predominance of academics in its leadership and a high number of white-collar white workers in its ranks. The need to root the socialist movement in the multi-racial working class remains the litmus test for the movement’s continued growth and development.

It’s against this background that socialist electoral strategy has dominated as the main way to reconnect with the working class. But as several socialist campaigns have shown, without a strong social base from which the socialist movement can exert power, socialists in office will struggle to overcome the bureaucratic obstacles and political pressure the state has thrown in the way of political movements intent on challenging the status quo. The low level of working class self-organization and dominance of non-profit organizations leave the movement without a way to make that connection immediately.