great to be here i've heard so much about the common good caf and seen of the perfect presenters over the years and collaborated with pass to rich for so long it's a great to finally get a chance to to join with you tonight i have been involved in living wage were specifically in washington state since one nine hundred ninety eight when i helped to coordinate living wage efforts in the state of washington working with people like mark mcdermott and we had three principals this living wage effort a strong social safety net upward mobility for all in the right to organize and bargain collectively and to help lift up all people  i bring a face perspective that trying to bring a moral voice to this scandal of a lack of living wage in our community and as a night where many people who are involved with churches or at church tonight i'm going to quote from at least one of the people who've written recently who inspire me around the concept of living wage and then to talk a little bit about the backdrop that leads to church council of greater seattle to be engaged in not just the effort for a higher minimum wage in seattle but for the values that draws to stand for a sufficient sustainable livelihood for all people of sufficient sustainable livelihood for all people because this is all to meet lee it's a moral issue and a human issue and one that we have to organize and bring together people around and in fact we have several efforts that we are involved in with community members with congregations to lift up the idea of living wage for all in this year of two thousand fourteen when the debate is hot and heavy about fifteen dollars an hour just as we recall that just a year ago the idea of fifteen dollars an hour was a pipe dream i was part of an interfaith setting meeting with the c e o of alaska airlines and i was the person who first presented to him the concept of fifteen dollars an hour for the few lawyers uncapping cleaners who with me and who were talking about the conditions under which they worked and struggled and while there was immediate acceptance to say how can i help the social conditions and improve the work of conditions we soon found out that the economy of our airlines is built on having subcontracted workers who make a substandard wage and so it would tilt the economics and the profitability of the airline to pay workers a fifteen dollars an hour ways well the workers organize and so we have it where the workers surrounding the airport are making that right now and it's being litigated so that the airport workers also get to the standard which the voters stood for and before we knew it the mayoral candidates were falling over themselves about fifteen dollars an hour not that the concept was not good but who was going to do it first and who was going to do it better so we've come a long way on that matter so as a night where people are in the lisa christian community or in churches i thought i had a quote someone who's come to have a great reputation for standing with those who are poor and that is pope francis who has become something of a rock star on issues of the economy so i thought a quote from him from him as we start off tonight he has a section that says no to an economy of exclusion just as the commandment thou shall not kill such a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life today we also have to say that not to an economy of exclusion and inequality such an economy kills how can it be that is it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure but it is news when the stock market loses two points this is a case of exclusion can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving this is a case of inequality today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest where the powerful feed of han the powerless as a consequence masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized without work without possibilities without any means of escape and we're not let off the hook a globalization of indifference has developed in our societies the culture of prosperity deadens us we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem america spectacle they fail to move us and he goes on to say that we need to dream and our dream soars higher what we need is not talking about ensuring just nourishment or dignified sustenance for all people but also the general temporal welfare and prosperity this means education access to health care and above all employment for it is through free creative participatory and mutually supportive labor that human beings express and enhanced the dignity of their lives just to wage enables them to have adequate access to all the other goods which are destined for a common use so with that in mind i think we have some further moral sanction for a living wage in our community so it's an exciting time because the concept of a living wage is one whose time has come within our community and it's one that people have worked hard on for many years interesting lee and i come from a catholic background just to note that the concept of living wage was the title of a book by monsignor john ryan in one thousand seven called the living wage and hence that's how the concept became popularized and then adopted by people like f who will talk about momentarily further inspiration we're talking about our rich in the introduction around our ancestors my grandfather came as an immigrant from spain to new york city and in one nine hundred twenty two he worked as a bellhop at the hotel a block from where i grew up for twenty five cents an hour today we have a situation where we have a hotel worker who i know who worked for twenty seven years in the most prominent hotel in seattle and she was struggling for a living wage and said you know i'm making nine dollars and seventy five cents an hour and i can't make it on that amount and then we heard about the concept of hotel workers who move fifteen sixteen rooms at a time inish in a shift now they have so called heavenly beds that way one hundred fifty pounds to be able to move those mattresses clean those rooms and the stories of these workers saying they made something like nine dollars and thirty two cents an hour and this was in two thousand and three and nine thirty two today is the minimum wage in washington state we have not progressed very far for those who are struggling to make ends meet we've worked with janitors who have worked for many years and i remember at night in downtown seattle outside a big commercial office building having pizza with them and it was a big success when they achieved a three year contract paying eleven dollars and ninety five cents an hour and at that time the biggest issue for these workers was having a vacation so they could go visit their families in their home countries and i was just talking with our friends before tonight was saying in his state of oklahoma that the governor not only said there could be no increase in no laws to mandate an increased or a living wage but that there should be no law mandating vacation imagine that talk about the dignity of the human being and the dignity of the worker so then we have martina who spoke recently at a forum on economic inequality we'll talk about the mayor's committee on a quality a little bit later and martina is working for the minimum wage at a fast food restaurant mcdonald's and make making nine dollars and change an hour and she commutes two hours a day from skyway and asked what would fifteen dollars an hour do means i don't have to live paycheck to paycheck i might be able to achieve my dream of getting a b a and going back to school i might be able to pay some off some of my health bills that i have i might be able not to work two jobs that's what the differences between nine thirty two an hour and a wage that brings us toward that standard of a sufficient sustainable livelihood for all and even fifteen dollars an hour doesn't get us there we'll talk about that a little bit later on but we know we have a situation and mark mcdermott will talk about this in a few weeks where the state of working america an organization recently stated that we know that wages are stagnating generally in our community the cost of living is rising purchasing power is declining and productivity nonetheless is very high in fact the highest ever but the workers are not receiving the benefits and we know that from two thousand and nine to two thousand and twelve the top one percent of our community got ninety five percent of the gains and in washington state the inequality growth is even more pronounced even in light and washington state so one speaker recently said it's time to repair the wage floor that has rotted out time to repair the wage floor that has rotted out so i think we have some work to do now i like airplanes i like the idea of flying but it's important to say at what price now there have been we have heard recently about the eight point seven billion dollar tax break that boeing god to be able to directly preserve jobs in washington state but i want to draw us back our attention to a few years ago two thousand three when boeing got a three point two billion dollars tax break and what was particularly galling at the time was that they insisted that unemployment be cut for forty four thousand farm workers at the same time that they were getting the tax break and the result was jobs went to south carolina fast forward eight point seven billion dollars task break and we now know that two thousand jobs are leaving the state as of today so we have a system of inequality we know we desperately need reform of our tax system in this state where we have the most regressive tax system in washington state where the poor pay the highest percentage of their income in local and stak e taxes compared with the highest percentages of our system the living wage helps to narrow that gap of inequality it is but one step of a system of exclusion and inequality that we need to address but we must take the steps that are in front of us franklin delano roosevelt said no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country by living wages i mean more than bare subsistence level i mean the wages of decent living and there you have it we've we've strayed very far from these values we know that martin luther king in his last years not only fought for civil rights for all people but also for the rights of working men and women he said all labor has dignity let us remind ourselves not only memphis but we are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages so we know that we have the moral mandate to work for a living wages in our society and in our community and so let's look for a moment at the issue of the increased minimum wage in the context of a living wage in in our community now i've given you a packet which we are sharing with community members in congregations around the community and ultimately we're inviting congregations and community organizations to add a moment in june to put up banners and to hang a display that says living wages for all imagine if twenty forty sixty organisations at one point said living wages for all in this community that would send a message to the powers that be that are deliberating around an increased minimum wage let me say just by way of a little background that what we have before us right now is we have a mayor's committee on any quality that is looking in a confidential setting at proposals that would get us to a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage at some point we have the work of the fifteen now campaign in  toward fifteen hour and a more rapid expeditious and inclusive manner and we have all sorts of gradations and competition within so it's important that we look at a little bit the story of living wage and realize that it's one piece of the puzzle and to remember from a principled standpoint that it is the dignity of the human person the human being the solidarity to stand with each other as brothers and sisters and make each other into others and the idea of the common good hands to common good caf that what is good for the community is a sufficient sustainable livelihood for all people and that we have a responsibility for each other and when there is a gap of inequality such as exists in our community right now that is to the detriment of the whole society the whole commons and where the lesser for it and shame on us if we don't work for a living wage within this context in the most powerful wealthy nation in the world when we have the opportunity to make it happen and we all have some responsibility for we all have some opportunity and so the invitation for us is not that we do everything but that we do something and do it well so i'm going to turn the page just to look at the concept of living wage ordinances you might look at the blue sheet and to note that the concept of a living wage as applied to city and state and county contractors firms that do businesses with local jurisdictions goes back to one nine hundred ninety four within going back to the city of baltimore and it has some ties apply to zones like airports or hotel zones like in santa monica california citywide living wage ordinances have applied in cities more that more recently in places like san francisco which right now has a wage of ten dollars and seventy four cents an hour indexed to inflation and it also has a paid sick leave law in place and also a mandate where a higher wage needs to be paid if health care benefits are are not provided recently santa fe passed a living wage ordinance that raised the minimum wage by sixty five percent studies have shown and more recent studies that have come out in the context of the mayor's committee that even with higher minimum wages in cities as big as san francisco or as dramatic increases like in santa fe that the effect on businesses being able to go out of business the effects have been absolutely minimal and in fact some of these cities have become more prosperous as a result logic holds if people have more money to consume with that's more money into the economy if people are able to enjoy some leisure time and be able to sustain their households and to raise their children in the communities near where they work the whole community benefits and the economy benefits so this is why people like nick hanauer the venture capitalist is saying not only is a higher minimum  wage good moral issue it makes economic sense to so no credible study has said that living wage is a detriment to the community and believe me there have been groups that have tried to create studies that have tried to diminish the impact of the living wage so there is all the more reason to support a living wage and there have been some instances of living wage ordinances in the state of washington the most recent one was related to city contractors in the city of bellingham which i and others work a group called jobs jobs with justice worked on back in two thousand and two so let me go further and talk a little bit about and because i want to make sure that you have a chance for a conversation i just want to point out to you this concept of the self sufficiency standard and you can take a moment and and fill it out if you like but what i want to get to is the fact that if you could if you could take a moment and guess what it takes to make ends meet without resorting to public or private assistance it be an interesting exercise to look at your monthly costs what it really takes for people who are struggling to make ends meet people who are living paycheck to paycheck who are choosing between the rent and health care between food in childcare it costs a lot to live in seattle it costs even more to raise a family in this area so what does it take to pay for housing in rent an apartment in seattle just throw out a number what it was say what's the rent around here for what do you think the rent for a two bedroom apartment is fifteen fifteen hundred that sounds like does sound like a reasonable figure so if you're making nine dollars and thirty two cents an hour how can you afford to live in this community so housing is say you want to rent a two bedroom apartment say you have a preschooler paying for childcare so you're paying fo costs and maybe in your neighborhood you don't have a queue of c or safeway right down the street we have had neighborhoods without grocery stores for years and you're aware of that what if we have metro service cut back by seventeen percent what about if health care is not provided and other other costs of living cell phone other the other things that clothing things that cost how much do we think it would cost to make ends meet and related to if you are making nine dollars and thirty two cents an hour time two  times two thousand hours a year you probably come up with a number not only add fifteen dollars an hour but somewhat higher so you could experiment with this but i'm going to i'm going to jump ahead in cheat in and so it over spying the question now live provided you the most up to date data on self sufficiency wages we've perianth french more in turn as working on this so from if you look on the back she was says king county the latest job gap report suggests that for a single adult with some basic to meet basic needs to pay your taxes and with a little bit of savings you need a hourly wage of seventeen dollars and fifty five cents an hour to make ends meet diana pierce at the university of washington who i work i work to promote her self sufficiency standard around the state of washington several years ago has done a scientific study of every county in washington state and every major municipality and she's done this for most states in the united states and she suggests that if you have two adults and two children each adult needs to make a wage in washington in the seattle area of nearly fifteen dollars an hour not just one adult but two in order to make ends meet for a family so when we say fifteen dollars an hour we're not talking about a wage that outlandish we're talking about a one that allows people to live in dignity in our community in two thousand and fourteen in the united states of america is that too much to ask is that too much to ask all right so can we pass around the  cheek so i want to just take us momentarily to look at the discussion and just let it will sample letter which i'll share with you in a minute let's look at the tentative timeline for a fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage in seattle now the mayor's committee on any quality is having another closed door session tomorrow and they are looking at how to get to fifteen dollars an hour which is what the mayor said even the mayor himself is expressing some discomfort about the lack of progress of the committee why because the committee is made up of a balance of the whole of society in there and we're looking at people who have interests to say well we should count tips as wages and therefore they should those workers in the restaurant and hotel industry should not be given a living wage they should count what's called tip credit as part of their as part of their wages we have others who say well it shouldn't apply to this set of workers or that set of workers or to certain non profits but i'll tell you that one of the leaders of the downtown emergency service center said recently that it would it would essentially be an injustice if this minute higher minimum wage did not imply at all if you start segregating out one group or another group so the mayor's committee supposed to come up with a proposal by the end of the month to the mayor then it's supposed to go to the city council for deliberation meanwhile to fifteen now campaign is looking at how to move move concretely in an expedited fashion apply to all to a fifteen dollar hour wage and the latest proposal and some of this is shifting ground but the they are proposing that there's immediate movement to a fifteen dollars an hour for those companies with over two hundred fifty employees and more and for those with less that there would be a graduated scheme that would lead to fifteen dollars an hour in a short amount of time the point is we need to have movement for it to fifteen dollars an hour for all now in two thousand and fourteen there are a lot of politics at play here and this is why i have spent time talking about from a principled basis why we need to move forward so it is not this effort as many have written there's a lot of effort and seattle more than any other place is good at charitable giving and i on behalf of faith communities we  are at the forefront of providing assistance around homelessness and food for the hungry through food banks and that work needs to continue but beyond direct service there's another foot of social justice and that is social change and we need both feet to walk direct service and social change to two feet of social justice and so there has to be movement where the solution to poverty is not charitable giving an ever more charitable giving but a measure of justice that gives dignity that is to do every human being fundamental human this child of god creature just like us not an other but a brother but a sister so let me take i'm going to conclude shortly because i know we're going to have a good discussion here i decided to weigh in with the mayor's committee and the city council the debate will occur at the city council level so one action that we can take is to to right and be in touch with our members of the city council and the mayor because they are going to deliberate this issue and they're not all of one mind but they also have open minds as well and we need to speak with them the mayor is going to be considering a number of factors trying to weigh and balance different competing interests to fifteen now campaign maybe putting an initiative to the ballot and that may be considered in november but in this meantime we need to weigh in with some clear thinking on the imperative of moving forward to a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage at this time and it whether it takes a couple of steps to get there but it matters whether you look at if tip wages if tips are counted as wages if you create a separate youth wage if you create a training wage these run in our minds counter to  concept of a citywide minimum wage it matters whether this compliance and enforcement of such a measure we know that there is an issue of wage theft in our communities and if you're an undocumented worker you can be subject to exploitation and you have to find a way to enforce the law and so there needs to be a dedicated effort to that we're conscious of the fact that nonprofits are trying to serve those who are struggling to make ends meet but rather than to create an exclusive category for nonprofits why it isn't a city bring sectors together to say how do we provide some additional resourcing to those non profits to do the services they provide and they pay their workers justly and this applies to congregations as well i've had to look at the church coun greater seattle how we compensate our employees and believe me in my position i've had to struggle at times with how how to make ends meet but that's part of what we're about we have to look at our own communities the affiliate groups that were part of how do we support this concept of a living wage and we need to be able to speak to the fact that if it works in san francisco in santa fe it can work in seattle the stud confirm it we also know that we have the principle that no one who works full time ought to live in poverty that's just a travesty in our in our society in this day and age we need to look at the fact that whether it's two adults working at fifteen dollars an hour or a single adult making eighteen dollars an hour the movements and not just be two hundred fifteen dollars an hour but toward a living wage that allows people to be able to have house child care to be able to have access to transportation and importantly in seattle with the loss of affordable housing the ability to live in some proximity to where you work and that is a big issue so on the backside of the draft letter which i invite you to adapt them and make your own and send to members of the city council over the next couple of weeks that to expand the notion of minimum wage to living wage we need to call on the city to do an inventory of low income housing in our community and to see what the displacement has been and to commit to no more net loss of housing within our community we need to look at supporting nonprofits to do the work that they do but not by creating a separate wage but by creating supports to help them to do what they're doing well we need to create incentives so that there is local hiring for local jobs especially in communities that are disproportionately affected because for some communities the issue is not just  job that pays a living wage but a job at all and we know that we still have systems of exclusion where somehow communities of color continue to be excluded from contracts that they could do if they had access to them particularly where our offices are in the rainier valley or near beach area and that continues to be a struggle so solidarity with those communities toward local hiring is a matter that matters to us making education excess civil at every younger ages so that people have the prospects of a solid future and finally supporting the initiative to allow people to still have metro services throughout the city and throughout the county so that people can get where they need to support themselves so i submit this to you as some considered principles to look at the concept of not just a minimum wage but a living wage in the end this is an issue as we know of not just  issue of an option but it's a matter of life and death for people it's a matter of dignity and what makes us truly human it's a matter that is not only moral but it's an issue that affects the well being of our society and the future of our community it's a wonderful opportunity seattle needs to take advantage of it well thanks everybody for coming and i would speak for maybe about twenty minutes or so and i'll have time for a question answer and break up and small groups and so forth so i assume that everyone here is upset by the state of the world today we have every right to be angry we live in a world where eighty five people own as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity that's three point five billion people we live in a world where billions live on one or two dollars a day and thirty million children die of starvation malnutrition every year were clean water is an unobtainable luxury for billions while the grasping one percent sit on trillions of dollars in cash where boeing is stolen the pensions yesterday it was thirty thousand workers as of today it's one hundred thousand workers at the same time as it has so much profit that it bought back ten billion dollars worth of its own stock were bus system struggles for years to find seventy five million dollars to keep service intact while the left dogs in the legislature both major parties fall all over themselves to grant boeing eight point seven billion dollars in tax breaks in a matter of days eight point seven billion dollars coincidentally being the exact amount of the recent cut in the snap food stamp program where the most essential and hardest working people those who pick our crops care for our children sweep our floors serve our food clean our bathrooms and care for elderly or pay the lowest wages while those who speculate in stocks make real estate deals and bankrupt our economy take lavish incomes that would make the robber barons of the crowned heads of europe of previous age blush and shame where those who contribute the most get paid the least and those who contribute the least take the most where the richest nation in the world has the highest incarceration rate in world history where black and latino men can be expected to be stopped by police just because of their race were black there are more black men in prison today than there were slaves in the plantations of eight hundred fifty where capital is free to move anywhere it wants and people are controlled restricted and jailed for trying to cross those imaginary lines on the map that we call national borders where women are treated like sex objects to make a profit and are tonight basic reproductive justice and freedom where the l g b t q people are bashed fired and generally discriminated against just for their sexual orientation orientation and gender identity we were imperialist rivalry including the prospects of war are ever present as the crisis in ukraine shows us today where most fundamentally the one percent are willing to risk the destruction of the planet just to milk out the last time of profit from fossil fuels in a world where clean energy is abundant and we now have the technology to produce it has howard as historian howard zinn put it the wrong people are in prison and the wrong people are free capitalism has been it always been exploitive and oppressive has always threatened to nip humanity as german revolutionary luxemburg said one hundred years ago we face a choice of socialism or barbarism in the light of the climate crisis and other capitalist induced environmental crises we can we can say the choice today is socialism or the threat of extinction in the world in the words of the global justice movement another world is possible and now we can add another system is necessary if we are to survive everyone in this room can come up with a long list of the horrors of capitalism my talk tonight will contend that these horrors flow not from human nature or from greed or even the greed of the one percent but from the economic system itself i contend that we need to fight not just the evils of capitalism but the system itself and i'll try to explain why we need to replace it with much taller man than me this is the thing ok ok we all understand that capitalism as currently constituted is a threat to human life but couldn't there be a kinder gentler capitalism of course throughout history people have built mass movements that challenged even in even change the aspects of capitalism the civil rights movement ended jim crow segregation in the south women in the us briefly won abortion rights and legal equal pay although real equal pace is still a long way off workers have right one the right to have unions have better pay social security unemployment compensation we even have a clean air act and a clean water act which is supposed to protect the environment so why can't we just keep this up and turn gradually turn capitalism into its opposite there are two problems with this approach which is called reformism or social democracy the government under capitalism whether in military dictatorship or a formal democracy like we have in the united states it is dominated by capital centrists each government and governmental apparatus has to complete compete in the world with every other one in order to control their territory they need a strong military apparatus to build a strong military they need a strong economy in a capitalist world economy this means that each government must favor a capitalist interests that is the exploitation of workers and dividing workers against each other by using oppression the reality of the world competitive capital system is supplemented by many other measures by which the capitalist class rules the political system it uses its position as the economically dominant class to become the political ruling class these include bribery campaign contributions using economic power to bend legislatures to their will etc a good example of this is the recent bowing the bottle in the state of washington where boeing got all these tax concessions from both political parties overturning citizens united would be a good a good step but it would still leave the basic pro capitalist bias of the of the government intact because the capitalist bias of the government is true all over the world and not just in the united states because of the dynamic even when mass movements when reforms from the government the capitalist class and its governments take back those reforms whenever the mass movement recedes we see this today the games of the thirty's and the sixty's are either under attack or of already been rolled back welfare unemployment compensation social security reform of action etc since the great recession started in two thousand and seven austerity has ripped through every level of government at the state local and national level around the world whether these governments are called social democratic or even cap or open capital skiver ments like the united states nearly one hundred years of social democratic governments in europe have not changed the fundamental drives of capitalism even the most solid social democratic states in scandinavia are cutting their social programs in the face of the world economic crisis but there is an even deeper reality that capitalism is fundamentally competitive system each corporation must maximize its profit in order to survive it has to have as much money as possible to buy the most modern machinery possible to sell its goods as cheaply as possible to do this it has to cut corners on the environment pay workers as little as possible the wealth of capitalism is accumulated by exploiting workers workers are not paid the full value of what they produce their unpaid labor is accumulated as profit and no laws or other changes in capitalism can alter this fundamental dynamic it can be reformed on the surface but you cannot be reformed in a fundamental way as the old saying goes you can peel an onion layer by layer you cannot declaw a life tiger by claw capitalism is a tiger not an onion so if we if it will take a revolution to get rid of capitalism what kind of revolution with that be marx examined capitalism and saw that workers with a class that was exploited and on whom capitalism relied for its profits workers had the power to cut off profits and bring the system to its knees workers no one not only had the power to overthrow capitalism but they had the interest in doing so capitalism rest fundamentally on exploitation and cannot exist without it however it also relies on the oppression of all workers workers in general are oppressed they are told what to do by their exploiters and their agents the whole work day they are denied the right to democratically control their lives their choices as consumers are limited by the capitalist need for profit they are alienated from their work lives and from each other capitalism sees people as means to an end and treats people as such this then spreads over to alienated human relations throughout the whole society besides this workers who are specially oppressed as women people of color queue workers etc are treated as less than full human beings based on these characteristics all told the vast majority of workers are not only oppressed in general but are specially oppressed as well this gives workers both a fundamental power and interest in overthrowing capitalism of course this is countered by the country power of the capitalists over the means of mental production the media etc it takes struggle an organization for workers to overcome capitalist conditioning but over and over again workers have risen up and overthrown or nearly overthrown the system a short list of examples include germany nine hundred eighteen to twenty three china nine hundred twenty hundred six and of course the arab spring starting in two thousand and eleven and continuing today in russia nine hundred seventeen the revolution went further and actually got rid of the old governmental apparatus and created a workers government and began to move towards socialism for a few years before the counter revolution which was led by stalin so what was marx as alternative to capitalism marx looked at the history of working class revolutions and came to some conclusions when workers were organizing conscious enough they would eliminate the capitalist governmental structure and replace it with a worker state democratically controlled by the vast majority once workers took revolutionary political power they would use that power to transform the economy to take collective ownership and control over it this would be this would need ultimately to happen on an international scale to get rid of the competition between states everything couldn't happen at once but workers would take control of the economy and shift its fundamental drive to human needs instead of profit over time the market in competition would be replaced by democratic planning public ownership and workers control of course one of the most fundamental human needs is the need for a healthy environment this would mean a rapid shift away from fossil fuels and nuclear power to clean energy to be sure that the unity of the working class was not broken up the workers government would need to take radical immediate steps to dismantle institutional racism sexism etc over time as the economy developed more and more abundance increased money would loses significance importance and finally disappear along with class divisions the work we could be cut drastically as the wast activities of capitalism banking real estate stock market speculation advertising arms production etc are eliminated finally and what marx called the higher stage of communism the guiding principle of society because become from each according to their ability to each according to their needs leisure would increase then people would be able to develop themselves in an all round way as marx put it the freed of element of each is the condition for the free development of all or as john lennon describe communism imagine one of my favorite songs of all time imagine no possessions what i wonder if you can no need for greed or hunger a brotherhood of man imagine all the people sharing all the world imagine there's no countries it isn't hard to do nothing to kill or die for imagine all the people living life and peace the vision this vision has nothing in common with what is often been called socialist or communist countries russia under stalin china under ma cuba under the castros marx this vision was fundamentally democratic the key was to remake the relations of production workers democracy at work and throughout society this would only happen if the workers did it themselves this is why marx called socialism the self emancipation of the working class and the so called socialist and communist societies a new real ruling class exploited the workers in order to compete with the other capital of states they built up military power and developed the economy to accumulate and have the basis for a strong military stalin started the process by leading a counter revolution against the workers government in russia in the one nine hundred twenty s the later so called communist societies were modeled on in all these states not only exploitation but oppression as well returned a literary version of the overthrow of workers power and its replacement by stalin ism is laid out and george orwell's animal farm for the reasons outlined a before social democratic parties have only modified capitalism now they have abandoned even the nominal goal of socialism and they have largely adopted neo liberal policies but is marx his vision possible it is for two reasons capitalism developed the economy the technology to provide a society of abundance with new technology that can provide clean energy new organic farming techniques etc we could provide a decent living standard to everyone in the world without destroying the earth the other basic force for socialism is the working class itself it is the first class that produces collectively on a large scale and has a potential to provide for everyone the working class is continually showing its potential to transform the system besides numerous examples of actual working class revolution that i just mention history is full of the historic struggles against exploitation and oppression really strikes and union movements the anti globalization movements america africa and asia if workers revolutions can lay the basis for a post capital society how can we here today contribute that to that process as noted before workers have made several attempts at socialist revolution over the last hundred fifty years in the earliest attempts capitalism wasn't developed enough to sustain a society of abundance after russia the other revolutions never succeeded in getting rid of the old capitalist governmental apparatus and replacing it with the workers democracy the main reason they failed was the lack of a large enough revolutionary organization that could lead the process the capitalists are highly organized and have all the physical and mental means of production at their disposal to defeat them workers to have to be highly organized the socialist revolution cannot be willed into existence capitalism is a crisis ridden system a deep economic and social crisis will create a situation where as lenin put it the ruling class can no longer rule in the old way and the oppressed classes are no longer willing to be ruled in the old way when this happens the question will be our workers well enough organized to carry through and take power to be sure that workers will be ready we need to contribute as much as possible to building socialist organization today this is necessary not just to be sure that we organize when the revolutionary crisis comes but also because a clear understanding of our goals can help to provide the best strategies and tactics movements today for example in the movements of today marxist argue for no support to either political party major political party mass struggle as opposed to terrorism or supporting politicians the need to fight oppression now to unify the working class support for all workers struggles against exploitation rejection of any support to imperialism and support for self determination of nations and finally find founding all these movements on democratic principles  making sure the people involved in them democratically control those movements to contribute the most to bring about a socialist transformation socialist do two things three things participate in a build as much as possible any struggle against the evils of capitalism today learn from other activists they work with and finally lay the basis for revolutionary party by building socialist organization the three are directly related revolutionary organization can help movements be more successful and increasing movements against capitalism can create more conscious revolutionaries so where does that leave the people in this room tonight i would like to make three recommendations first of all continuing and intensify the work that i know most people in this room are doing in the movements that they are involved in secondly seriously consider marxism revolutionary socialism as an alternative to capitalism consider marxism as a fulfillment of the progressive struggles against  oppression exploitation war and environmental destruction look into marxism read about it talk to marxists about it and finally if you decide that marxism is the best way to transform the world in a healthy direction seriously consider joining a marxist organization do an investigation of the politics of the various groups that exist with a view to joining one ok questions comments kind of good stuff yeah basically there has never been such a thing as pure cap and pure that is free market capitalism like milton friedman writes about or things like that where everything is the market  capitalism was created in some ways in england anyway there was a royal government which kept peasants off the land and created a working class which then allowed the rising capitalist class to employ workers in their factories and so forth so it's never been a situation where we had a a free market economy with very little government involvement and all that kind of stuff that's a myth of the libertarians and people whose support milton friedman's ideas and things like that so what we have today is capitalism in the sense that it's dominated by capital it's stahmann aided by the drive for profit it's a competitive system and even if you had this kind of capitalist utopia we're everybody had a small business in their government didn't interfere the way capitalism develops over time concentration takes place businesses are driven out of business and they get bigger and so forth and pretty soon you have monopolies that that run things and capitalists do not operate on principle they operate a profit so they're not going to go on the good libertarian therefore i'm against the government being in involved in the economy now they're going to go and bribe officials and get tax breaks and get good regulations and do all this kind of stuff and they will always use the government for their own ends no matter what and so you can never have a situation where you have a pure free market economy where the government doesn't really interfere because as soon as people have concentrations of wealth they're going to go to the government and use the government to further their concentrations of w so that's the way it's always going to be so we live today very much in a capital