“Introduction
“Looking at the world as it exists today leaves the average person with a sense of hopelessness, Joblessness is an issue. Outsourcing, climate change, housing and food insecurity have been issues not addressed by our leaders- not in any real tangible way. Polarization has given way to reactionaries who have found a way to seize the levers of power and destroy whatever protections workers have accumulated; and the left (which has no representation in the halls of power) has been silent in terms of how to approach this fight and, what must be done in order to protect not only workers, but the general citizenry from the corporate forces that prioritize profit over people, trapping workers in a cycle of exploitation. I’ve grown frustrated with unrealistic fantasies not grounded in real material conditions and the ineffectual strategies often offered by worker-centered programs. It is because of this that I have developed an idea by synthesizing some ideas from the forefathers of leftist thought: Marx, Lenin, and the lesser-known Daniel De Leon. In Marx I kept the critique and frameworks of dialectical and historical materialism alive, focusing on workplace democracy and class struggle. In Lenin the need for a guiding party that creates the legislative wins to empower the working class, as well as certain industries that are necessary for life being controlled by the state where appropriate, like healthcare or pharmaceutical development, or water. And lastly from De Leon the idea of worker unions taking control of their own economic future, working separately but hand in hand with a party to further their conjoined goals. In the following pages I will deliver a brief description of the issues facing workers, my ideas around municipality owned enterprises and how my ideas are different from their usual implementations, the role of worker unions, a political party, and finally my ideas of how to strategically implement these programs.”
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