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anticapitalist_orgs.md
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Many think that fighting against capitalism feels a lot like throwing pebbles at a tidal wave. How can *I, alone*, do anything to stop all of the [injustices I see being committed?](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md) We see our neighbors being picked up and [deported by ICE](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#latinos), [police murdering and imprisoning us](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#black-people), debts that lock us into [indentured servitude](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#workers-and-the-poor), [global surveillance of every minute detail of our lives](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#pervasive), endless [wars and imperialism](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#imperialism), ecological destruction, and [literal slave labor camps](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md#prisoners). Our rents, food costs, and debts are going up, and our [incomes have stagnated.](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/capitalism_doesnt_work.md) The media, and everything around us seems apathetic, complacent, and oblivious. Eight men currently control about half the world's wealth. Their share is growing daily, and will reach a conclusion obvious to anyone who's played monopoly before. With only our labor to sell, and the demand for that labor decreasing, things seem oppressively bleak.
Here's the thing: **You are not alone**. In fact, **we wage workers are the majority**. The ruling class of [absentee owners](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/crash_course_socialism.md) make up a *tiny minority* of your city's population. Often invisible to us, is the fact that we as wage workers are *surrounded by comrades* who share our same basic interests. Some hold more prejudices than others, but all deserving of a comfortable life. We are impoverished by an *imposed artificial scarcity*, a mal-allocation of the things we need to survive. World food production and housing *already surpasses our needs*, yet [1 out of every 7 US citizens needs to visit food banks to survive.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/hunger-study-food/14195585/) In the [UK there are 10x more houses than homeless families.](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/housing-crisis-10-empty-homes-5008151) Our healthcare and other social services, which are ample, are increasingly being privatized. We know that by simply organizing for *human needs rather than private profit*, we can solve our societal problems. We have but to shake off these mooching, leeching, capitalist parasites, like a dog shaking off fleas.
Here's the thing: **You are not alone**. In fact, **we wage workers are the majority**. The ruling class of [absentee owners](https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/crash_course_socialism.md) make up a *tiny minority* of your city's population. Often invisible to us, is the fact that we as wage workers are *surrounded by comrades* who share our same basic interests. Some hold more prejudices than others, but all are deserving of a comfortable life, free from fears about our health and living situation. We are impoverished by an *imposed artificial scarcity*, a mal-allocation of the things we need to survive. World food production and housing *already surpasses global needs*, yet [1 out of every 7 US citizens needs to visit food banks to survive.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/17/hunger-study-food/14195585/) In the [UK there are 10x more houses than homeless families.](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/housing-crisis-10-empty-homes-5008151) Our healthcare and other social services, which are in some cases ample, are increasingly being privatized and gutted. We know that by simply organizing and planning for *human needs rather than private profit*, we can solve our societal problems. We have but to shake off these mooching, leeching, capitalist parasites, like a dog shaking off fleas.
How do we get there, how do we win? **We join anti-capitalist organizations.**
Capitalists retain their power through the strategy of *divide and conquer.* [Scapegoating hasn't gone out of style;](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating) the tactic has always been to blame certain races, sexes, religions, activists, and transform them into demons causing all the world's problems, so people won't point their fingers upwards. The *isolating individualism* enforced by them pervades all aspects of our lives: we often live in isolated housing, we're actively told not to organize or form unions, the news tells us to be afraid of our neighbors... everything ( even human life ) has value only as a unit of *individual consumption.*
Capitalists retain their power through the strategy of *divide and conquer.* [Scapegoating hasn't gone out of style;](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating) the tactic has always been to blame certain races, sexes, religions, activists, and transform them into demons causing all the world's problems, so people won't point their fingers upwards. The *isolating individualism* [upheld by them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony) pervades all aspects of our lives: we often live in isolated housing, we're actively told not to organize or form unions, the news tells us to be afraid of our neighbors... everything ( even human life ) has value only as a unit of *individual consumption.* Their ruling-class worldview becomes the accepted, the natural, the inevitable norm that is *good for all*, rather than one them benefits the ruling minority only. Profit and the *entrepeneurial capitalist innovator* become our new Gods, hiding the truth about our material conditions. There is a **finite number of hours of labor that can be done in a given day,** and most of it is going to absentee owners. Or as Eugene Debs put it, that "millions of men and women work all the days of their lives and secure barely enough for a wretched existence."
Anti-Capitalist organization always has, and always will be, our only hope, and the only real threat to Capitalist interests. Malcolm X keenly stated that the hand becomes a weapon only when our fingers are **joined together into a fist.**
Anti-Capitalist organization always has, and always will be, our only hope, and the only real threat to Capitalism. Malcolm X keenly stated that the hand becomes a weapon only when our fingers are **joined together into a fist.**
Our task is the same as it always has been: to **agitate, educate, organize, and join leftist organizations in our cities.**