Socialism is a philosophy and a movement to liberate humanity from the oppression of a world where profit is the main decider of how society is organized and most of us are treated like interchangeable objects to be used and discarded.

It is not enough for people to have something to struggle against. People need a vision of the future to struggle for. I believe socialism provides a vision of hope that is badly needed at this moment.

And it is not just an abstract vision now. In the last decade, with the election of socialists from Mamdani in NYC to the city council in LA to Congresspeople like AOC & Rashida Tlaib, we are growing as a movement and showing we have political power not just on the streets but also at the ballot box. Americans under 40 are especially eager for a new system.

Socialism seeks to end people’s alienation from their labor and bring some democracy into the economy and workplaces. We suffer 40+ hour work weeks not because that work is actually necessary but to make profits for the capitalist class.

Most people are wage slaves living under the tyranny of value production. Our desires and democratic will are subordinate to value production the vast majority of the time.

Before I continue discussing my theory of socialism, I want to note that this morning a 37-year-old US citizen was executed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis after a group of them beat him. [This presentation was given on the day Alex Pretti was murdered.]

ICE and CBP are now paramilitaries that attack people in our country who dare to resist the attempt to install a racist capitalist dictatorship.

Just as we view the eras of slavery and feudalism with shock, one day people will look back with shock at the capitalist era where people were forced to work 40+ hour weeks for 40 years or be homeless. They will be surprised that such a system has lasted so long.

My vision of socialism is different from the ones most people have heard from the loudest Marxist groups in the US. Marxists-Humanists differ from Marxist-Leninists in asserting that alienated labor is just as fundamental a defect of capitalism as the system of private property. And that democracy is a key part of socialism.

Marx said in his 1844 manuscripts that eliminating private property by itself would not end capitalism. Marx argued that making all property owned by workers cooperatives (or implicitly the state) would not end capitalism. Marx said that private property emerged as the result of people being alienated from their labor[1]. Ending capitalism and achieving socialism requires human beings regaining control over the conditions of their labor.

One big boss of the state is hardly what Marx meant or what people want when they want an end to capitalist dictatorship over their lives.

Many people fall into a trap of assuming the system of capitalism is the result of a handful of greedy billionaires. They are greedy and have great power, but the forces of capitalism are impersonal, and the oppression would still exist even if Jeff Bezos and his ilk had never been born.

Marxist Humanists believe that the masses have the innate desire to be free and to free themselves from capitalist tyranny. We do not believe in a vanguard party as Marxist Leninists do. We believe that some people will be more educated and informed about history, theory, and the pitfalls that lie ahead. But that just means it is our job to talk with our fellow travelers and discuss where previous socialist movements have gone wrong and to push back against overly simplistic but seductive ideas that fall apart when one actually looks into them with any depth.

Socialism in the end is the belief that human nature is ultimately more egalitarian and cooperative than the hierarchical individualism that modern Western capitalism has tried to beat into us.

Socialism will not be brought about, in my opinion, by armed struggle. It will come to pass once there is a general strike and strikes in key sectors.

Conscience and organization don’t leap from zero to 60. People, especially Americans, have to gain experience in working in groups and being politically conscious before they will be ready to seize the means of production.

We’ve already seen examples of this. People who participated in the Occupy Wall Street camps saw how quickly a new way of living can emerge. The experience was transformative for all who participated in camps and in collective decision-making. We were able to self-organize food and security for ourselves. And now 2/3 of Americans view the concept of socialism favorably.

As bell hooks coined the term, we need to end the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. That system kills and harms countless people the longer it continues. Socialism is the only philosophy that offers a serious alternative to that system.

[1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm