During two months of campaigning to lead the NDP we’ve questioned the foundation of our economic system more than all branches of the party over the past few years. But our position has deep roots in the NDP/CCF and is more relevant than ever as capitalism destroys the prospect for human survival.
In a recent hit piece labelling me a “perennial gadfly” National Post columnist John Ivison mockingly noted, “Engler is campaigning on a platform to abolish capitalism.” At the more liberal end of the corporate press, Toronto Star reporter Mark Ramzy buried my candidacy in a long piece devoting significant attention to the more capital friendly contestants, simply noting I was running “for the leadership on an anti-military and anti-capitalist platform.” The Western Standard, Queen’s Journal, Rebel, Left of the Box and others have all described me as an anti-capitalist candidate and hundreds of thousands have read or watched my launch commentary, releases and videos saying I’m running to challenge capitalism. In recent days thousands of “capitalism can’t be fixed” leaflets and posters for the Toronto launch of a ten-city national tour have been distributed.
Aside from this recent flurry of anti-capitalist rhetoric, it’s remarkable how little discussion in NDP circles there has been of our wealth-concentrating, ecologically destructive economic system. But challenging capitalism is more important than ever.
Capitalism is a system of minority and class rule that is based on the private ownership of the means of livelihood. Capitalist collectives (corporations) have socialized labour while operating as privately owned workplace dictatorships that centralize power in the hands of a small elite.
Capitalism is a threat to humanity. The system’s need for constant profit maximization and growth is imperilling human survival. The last three years were the hottest in 100,000 years and CO2 levels are the highest in millions of years. Canadians have among the highest per capita GHG emissions, yet Canadian capital continues to expand its heavy GHG emitting tar sands extraction.
It’s not just the climate crisis. The search for corporate profits is driving mass species extinction, soil depletion, ozone layer thinning, loss of arable land, freshwater depletion and other ecological crises.
Capitalism is imperilling our ability to live on the planet but it’s also destroying our health. The growing health impact of plastics, a late twentieth century corporate invention, is a case in point. Researchers have found that most of us now have as much as a small spoon worth of plastic particles in our brains.
Capitalism also damages our mental health. Incessant messages to buy this and buy that are destabilizing. A staggering amount of resources and ingenuity are devoted to convincing us we need this or that (always more) to be satisfied.
At the same time as it wages a war on our psyche, capitalism alienates us from our labour. It devalues work, generally paying the hardest working people the least. In recent years Canadian capital has waged an unrelenting war on working class organizations, driving Canada’s private sector unionization rate to its lowest level in 80 years.
As capitalists attack unions, the system concentrates wealth in the hands of an ever-smaller elite few. Canada’s wealthiest family, the Thompsons, have nearly $100 billion. Canada has about 75 billionaires, who control more wealth than millions of Canadians. According to data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the richest one per cent of Canadians hold 24 per cent of the country’s total net wealth while 53 per cent of all wealth is held by the top 10 per cent.
Wealth concentration is a threat to democracy. Through their ownership of shares, large shareholders have an excessive amount of power within the political system. They buy political parties, own the media, fund think tanks, organize themselves in business lobby groups, amongst other things. In short, they try to mould societies’ political, cultural and economic structure to their benefit.
But my campaign does not just criticize capitalism. It offers an alternative.
One dollar one vote capitalism should be replaced with one person one vote economic democracy. Wherever there’s social labour, there should be community ownership and workplace democracy.
As my late uncle Allan Engler argued in Economic Democracy: The Working Class Alternative to Capitalism the required social change should “be based on workplace organizations, community mobilizations and democratic political action; on gains and reforms that improve living conditions while methodically replacing wealthholders’ entitlement with human entitlement, capitalist ownership with community ownership and master-servant relations with workplace democracy.” (You can watch my father’s series of videos called Economic Democracy or No Democracy — An Anti Oligarchy Manifesto seeking to popularize the themes.)
And these ideas are clearly growing in popularity.
In its first ten days of fundraising my bid to lead the NDP on an anti-capitalist platform has raised over $55,000. Additionally, we’ve more than doubled the nomination threshold to participate in the leadership race with over 1,000 party members, covering all the party’s regional, equity and age requirements, signing my nomination form.
Despite fulfilling the nomination and financial criteria, there’s a possibility the party brass will block me from the race. But even those who don’t plan to vote for me should reject this type of anti-democratic manipulation. All but the most reactionary party members should want capitalism to be on the agenda in the NDP leadership race.
This is the CCF/NDP tradition. According to the 1933 Regina Manifesto, the aim of the party is to “REPLACE the present capitalist system” while the 1969 Waffle manifesto says, “Capitalism must be replaced by socialism.”
If I’m not allowed to participate in the race don’t expect much discussion of capitalism. If I’m allowed to run, expect everyone in the race to be questioning the odious economic system by the end of it.
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