A permanent and sustainable solution to all the problems facing working people is possible by taking the biggest companies into democratic ownership, and reorganizing the economy on a democratically planned basis. Under such a system we could democratically decide how to allocate resources. We could rapidly transition away from fossil fuels, develop massive jobs programs to rebuild the country's rotting infrastructure, and begin to build a whole new world based on meeting the needs of the majority, not the profits of a few.

Kshama Sawant

Categorized in : People Country Jobs

Today, we live in a world of incredible wealth and technology, alongside the most horrendous conditions of poverty, war and environmental crisis. This is result of capitalism, a system based on prioritizing profits not human need where the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a capitalist elite.

Kshama Sawant

technology war hands

The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing's profit-making machine.

Kshama Sawant

boeing factories machines

We need a break from Capitalism.

Kshama Sawant

capitalism break needs

The for-profit health insurance industry is the main obstacle to delivering high quality, universal healthcare for all. It should be replaced with a single-payer system, a public program that guarantees everyone coverage.

Kshama Sawant

healthcare quality guarantees

The underlying issue is the system of capitalism itself, and under this system the best means for regulating or checking their power is not relying on a government which represents the interests of the rich but for millions of working people to become politically active in workplaces and communities through building unions and our own political party.

Kshama Sawant

party government mean

There are limits to reforming a system that is dominated by these massive and rapacious corporations.

Kshama Sawant

massive corporations limits

There is plenty of work to do, but big business isn't investing in rebuilding a green economy for the 21st century. Instead, they put their money into a gigantic financial casino, and when that led to catastrophe in 2008-9, they made us pay for it.

Kshama Sawant

casinos investing green

Capitalism is based on ruthless exploitation and competition, and leads inevitably to the development of mega monopolies.

Kshama Sawant

monopoly competition development

On the basis of capitalism, victories like raising the minimum wage are only temporary.

Kshama Sawant

minimum-wage bases victory

Big Oil, Wall Street and big business as a whole - they stand in the way of the kinds of change needed. They are fiercely against the radical reforms Bernie Sanders is popularizing.

Kshama Sawant

oil wall way

This is what happens under capitalism - as long as corporations and the super rich own the economy and the politicians, every new generation has to fight hard just to defend itself.

Kshama Sawant

generations fighting long

When the New Deal programs were passed in the mid 1930s, millions of workers were joining unions, striking, and occupying factories to fight for a better life. It was this radical labor movement that forced the establishment to make concessions.

Kshama Sawant

joining movement fighting

While we still live in a capitalist society, we of course will fight for whatever reforms help make life better for working people.

Kshama Sawant

reform fighting people

It's not just an economic crisis that capitalism has created. We also face an environmental catastrophe created by a handful of gigantic fossil fuel corporations.

Kshama Sawant

environmental corporations fuel

What Bernie Sanders is calling for is incredibly important. Things like a $15/hour minimum wage, single-payer healthcare, taxing the rich, and free education. The radical reforms he has popularized are a key part of any socialist program today.

Kshama Sawant

free-education important keys

Bernie Sanders has shown that socialism is no longer the barrier that it used to be during the Cold War.

Kshama Sawant

socialism cold war

The programs that came to be known as the New Deal were not simply handed down by the benevolence of FDR and the Democrats. They were fought for. And in the 1960s, it was the similar. You had incredible movements against Jim Crow, poverty and the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

Kshama Sawant

crow vietnam war

Whether or not you agree with Bernie Sanders' version of socialism, it is enormously significant that, for the first time in US history, a presidential candidates who calls himself a socialist has had an actual shot at winning the presidential election. And to his credit, he has not backed down from the label.

Kshama Sawant

presidential labels winning

Socialism is a society where the resources are used democratically to provide a better life for all, based on ending the dictatorship of big business over the economy and politics.

Kshama Sawant

better-life socialism economy

Socialism is a fundamentally different social system where the world's resources are not controlled by a greedy, undemocratic oligarchy. This is not the same as the capitalist welfare states that have existed in some European countries.

Kshama Sawant

different country world