Defeating the forces of neo-liberalism

How are we to defeat the forces of capitalism, neo-liberalism and imperialist war raging both in our own backyard and across the planet?

For socialists there is a basic straightforward answer.  Only one alternative force to the power of capitalism is really even conceivable – that is the force and power of the organised working class. 

So the issue of defeating neo-liberalism transmutes quite easily into working out how we could aid and support the self-organisation of the workers.  That not a question of recruiting more and more individuals to separate left organisations, but of now to build a new mass working-class political party. The individual left organisations only have importance to the extent that they are willing to aid that project.

The key issue for militants is to identify key issues that face workers and seek to aid in organising around these issues.

The trade unions

The debate at the moment is between work within the existing unions and breaking away to form independent unions. This tactical question is unlikely to resolve in one direction or another.  The political issue is unremitting opposition to a bureaucracy that has consistently betrayed the workers (as opposed to seeking common cause with them) and building rank and file democracy so that workers can organise in their own interests.

Race

The issue of race should be recognised as an issue for the working class specifically. The outcome of government strategy is to create an invisible army of workers who have almost no rights.  Automatically this eats into the rights of workers in general and requires workers to unite to defend their rights as a whole.

War

Demonstrations against George Bush make for impressive protests, as do individual actions that manage to damage warplanes, but only a workers movement is likely to target the local warmongers in the Government whom we can really reach.

The North

The Good Friday agreement was so popular that most people have not noticed that it no longer exists and has in fact transmuted into a mechanism, supported by the Dublin Government for putting Paisleyism in overall control of a northern government.  Partition was a deadly blow to the unity of the Irish working class.  Opposing this further division is a task for uniting the class.