En Passant

  In the latest edition of Solidarity James Supple rebuts the argument that under the China Free Trade Agreement Chinese workers will ‘steal’ Australian jobs.  He says in part: ‘The problem is not with migrant workers coming here but the potential for exploitation as a result of the new agreements. Instead of a xenophobic campaign, […]

In an article written for Red Flag, and republished in Socialist Worker US, Tom Bramble looks at the crisis in China’s economy.

Tiananmen Square was a dress rehearsal for the future. The Chinese working class has a material interest in democracy. It has the strength to overthrow the corrupt and bankrupt butchers in Beijing and their sons and daughters. Having done that the Chinese working class will be forced to take the revolution beyond bourgeois political demands and threaten capitalism in China itself. Then and only then can we talk about genuine socialism, the self-emancipation of the working class through its own democratic organs to organise production to satisfy human need, not to make a profit.

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Tiananmen Square was a dress rehearsal for the future. The Chinese working class has a material interest in democracy. It has the strength to overthrow the corrupt and bankrupt butchers in Beijing.

Having done that the Chinese working class will be forced to take the revolution beyond bourgeois political demands and threaten capitalism in China itself. Then and only then can we talk about genuine socialism, the self-emancipation of the working class through its own democratic organs of societal control.

The ramifications of the collapse in class struggle are clear for all to see – growing inequality, more wealth being shovelled to the wealthy, long working hours, high levels of disguised unemployment and politically a cowered trade union movement meek in its mildness and terrifying in its timidity, with a Labor Party whose raison d’etre appears almost indistinguishable from the Tories.

Instead of attacking Chinese and other ‘foreign’ workers we should welcome them and fight for them. In doing that can we begin rebuilding our capacity as a movement to defend all jobs and help keep at bay the nationalist flag of racism.