Manifestos for Left Unity: A Programme for Peace, People, and Planet

The world is at a crucial juncture where imperialist wars are expanding under the leadership of a hegemonic USA, and capitalism—mired in a terminal crisis—is unable to offer any alternatives and has failed to find any hiding ground. It has utilised all its strategies to divert the people. Both imperialism and capitalism have produced a climate crisis that threatens the very existence of human beings and the planet. In such a condition, a united left movement is the only option to uphold humanity. Left unity can be formed on the basis of the following common agendas, which are crucial for working people across the world.

Absolute opposition to wars and conflicts

War not only kills and maims idealistic young people from working-class families but also destroys the conditions for sustainable livelihoods. It weakens working conditions and marginalises the poor in the name of wartime crises and emergency situations. War empowers ruling elites and creates conditions for authoritarian regimes to govern people, while destroying democratic accountability. War increases the prices of goods and services that working people need every day—from food to banking; everything becomes more expensive, and the rising cost of living drains the wealth of the working poor. Wars are cowardly strategies of governing classes to domesticate people, reduce wages, and create a culture of compliance in the name of security threats. All wars endanger lives, livelihoods and environment. There should be no ifs, ands, or buts when opposing wars. Left unity can only champion world peace by opposing all forms of wars and conflicts manufactured by imperialism to uphold interests of corporate capitalism.

Fascism and the Far Right

The forward march of fascism and far-right forces in politics destroys social harmony and working-class unity by spreading the venom of reactionary nationalism, religion, and culture that divide people and weaken all forms of progressive movements for human emancipation. Yankee imperialism, racialised colonial capitalism, and its corporate mass media provide all necessary support for the growth of fascist forces in society and far-right forces in politics, concomitant with the requirements of imperialism and corporate capitalism. This alliance is fundamentally against working people. Therefore, left unity must fight fascism and far-right forces as part of its historic legacy of defeating fascism.

Uncompromising commitment to science and secularism

Science and secularism are central to establishing a liberal, democratic, diverse, and inclusive society, where reason stands ready to fight all reactionary forces. The reactionary right-wing onslaught on science and secularism helps spread misinformation and obscurantist dogmas that legitimise various forms of inequality and discrimination based on gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, and caste within capitalist ideological frameworks. Science is the only answer to the pseudoscientific culture propagated by reactionary forces to domesticate the masses under the guise of culture and tradition. Secularism, backed by science, can alone defeat these forces. Therefore, left unity must promote critical thinking and an intellectual tradition that questions everything, in order to promote scientific and secular temper in society, without surrendering to the fraudulent claims of cultural relativism and its Eurocentric political strategy of divide and dominate. Science and secularism are the twin foundations of all emancipatory struggles. The left unity must use science and technology to empower people and emancipate them from all forms of reactionary thoughts and practices.

Protect environment and reverse climate crisis

Capitalism over exploits nature in its accumulation process. Monetisation of the environment and commodification of nature produce all the conditions that breed the climate crisis in which the working poor suffer the most. Natural calamities are neither natural nor man-made, but a product of capitalist exploitation of natural resources—an exploitation that destroys the environment and creates imbalances that cause such calamities in which working people and women suffer the most. Capitalism and environmental sustainability cannot move together, as the capitalist system destroys all conditions necessary for the sustainable development of the natural world. Therefore, working-class opposition to capitalism is central to the protection of the environment and to reversing the climate crisis.

Stand with all marginalised people and groups

Capitalism marginalises, dispossesses and deprives the working poor on the basis of their status, class, race, gender, ethnicity, caste, sexuality, religion, and region. These multiple layers of exploitation are integral to capitalism. Fragmentations based on different identities weaken working-class struggle against capitalism, which manufactures all forms of marginalisation and deprivation. Therefore, the left must organise within specific contexts of capitalist exploitation while bringing unity among all marginalised sections of the population.

Expansion of public infrastructure and services for public welfare

Public housing, health, education, employment, industries, banking, roads, transport, and communication are crucial for human welfare and development. Capitalism destroys public infrastructure and services to create markets for private profit at the cost of public welfare. In the process of privatising public services, it creates alienating and dehumanising conditions based on the accessibility and availability of goods and services according to individual purchasing power. Privatisation is a denial of public welfare, fundamentally designed to work against working people, whose prosperity is feared by governing elites. Therefore, left unity must focus on expanding public welfare for the public good, to secure the dignity of individuals and communities in terms of security, safety nets, and the protection of basic human needs for the deepening of decentralised democracy for human development.

Unwavering commitment to individual freedom, democracy and Justice

Capitalism peddles the American dream based on desires, where individual freedom means consumer freedom determined by purchasing power, and where the level of individual freedom is measured by the level of individual income. Such a system offers no genuine individual freedom, where people can express themselves and their creative abilities without facing income-related barriers to accessing the market. Similarly, democracy is reduced to voting and elections in the pursuit of bourgeois interests at the expense of the people. Market-led democratic politics and its illiberal culture destroy both individual freedom and justice. The criminal nature of bourgeois democracy is a denial of freedom and justice for the people. Therefore, left unity requires an unwavering commitment to a state and government that promotes individual freedom, equality, and justice within a decentralised democratic framework designed to serve the people.

Learn from People

There is a tendency within left leadership to treat working people as if they are children who need guidance. Such leadership tendencies forget to learn from working people—their ideas, interests, and views—before conceptualising and leading class struggle. Class consciousness comes from work, and working people are already conscious of their exploitative working conditions, which do not give the working classes their due. Organisational bureaucracy, leadership hierarchy, and their lifestyle do not breed confidence among working people. Therefore, left leadership must come from the workers’ collective, not from outside the working class. Collective learning breeds collective consciousness, collective struggle, and collective emancipation from capitalism and all other forms of reactionary regimes. Learn from people before developing principles, policies and political strategies. Pre-determined leadership, policies and principles do not breed confidence of working people.

Defend peace, people and planet

In all situations, left unity must defend peace, people, and the planet at all costs. There is no other alternative as capitalism—through its relentless regimes of plunder—actively threatens peace and systematically destroys the harmony between people and the planet. This is not an accidental outcome of capitalist system but an integral strategy of domestication of human labour and nature in pursuit of limitless accumulation of profit. Struggle against such a barbaric system is central to protect, promote and coexistence of people, peace and planet.

These nine basic core agendas can help in developing left unity, which is the call of the hour in the face of a choice between survival and extinction. A united left alone can defeat the capitalist and imperialist designs that hold people and the planet as captives. A united left, armed with a united front strategy built around these nine core agendas, can provide ground for an emancipatory struggle for developing a formidable alternative capable of ensuring peace, prosperity, and the coexistence of peoples.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect (North London News) editorial policy.