statement of principles

IYSSE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES (US)

Humanity has entered the second decade of the 21st century beset by unemployment, wars, inequality and poverty.

Despite great advances in technology and communications, 23 million people in the United States are unemployed or underemployed, while half the population is either poor or near-poor. Worldwide, billions live in hunger and want.

After giving trillions of dollars to the banks, the US government is slashing public education and other social programs. Meanwhile, the financial aristocracy has exploited the crisis of its own making to vastly enrich itself at the expense of working people. Wages are falling and workloads rising, to the direct benefit of the rich.

Democratic rights are under relentless attack. The government illegally records every email and phone call, spies on journalists, has assassinated US citizens without due process, and imprisons and persecutes those who expose its crimes. Elected on the basis of mass anti-war sentiment, Barack Obama has only expanded US militarism and threatens a new war in Syria, Iran, Ukraine and elsewhere based on fabricated charges, that could lead to a global military conflagration.

War, poverty, and attacks on democratic rights are the inevitable outcome of the capitalist system, which subordinates all of society to the expansion of the wealth of a tiny financial elite. The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) is an organization of students and youth around the world that insists that chronic social problems can only be solved through an end to this system and a total reorganization of society on the basis of social needs, not private profit.

A SOCIALIST PROGRAM

The crisis that began in 2008 has revealed itself as far more than an economic downturn; it is the failure of an entire social system—capitalism.

The IYSSE is an organization of students around the world that insists that chronic social problems can only be solved through a total reorganization of society. Human progress is blocked by the capitalist system, which subordinates all considerations to the drive for corporate profit and the accumulation of wealth for the few.

THE IYSSE DEMANDS:

• Jobs for everyone who wants to work! Billions for education and social programs! We demand a reallocation of resources worldwide to provide employment for all those who need it. There is plenty of work to be done, including meeting the basic needs of the population for food and shelter, rebuilding schools, expanding access to health care, and providing cultural institutions accessible to workers and young people.
• End the wars! US imperialism is seeking to re-conquer the globe and put the world’s colonial people back in chains. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan has now been followed with war against Libya and Syria, with Iran in the crosshairs. The American war machine must be dismantled, and the vast sums expended upon it used to meet pressing social needs.
• Defend democratic rights! The US government’s domestic spying programs must be ended immediately and the spy agencies dismantled. All political prisoners, including Bradley Manning, must be freed, and the witch-hunt against Edward Snowden must end.
• For social equality! Nationalize the banks and major corporations! Democracy is incompatible with the levels of social inequality that prevail in the US and throughout the world. To break the financial oligarchy’s stranglehold over the economy, the IYSSE calls for the nationalization of the banks and all large corporations under the democratic control of the population.

FOR THE POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE OF THE WORKING CLASS

The issues students face—including high tuition, joblessness, debts, and the starving of resources for public education—are inseparable from the broader questions confronting the working class. None of these problems can be solved in schools and campuses alone. Students seeking to oppose social inequality, unemployment, and war must reach out to workers throughout the country and internationally.

A turn to the working class does not mean support for the trade unions. These organizations, who claim to represent the working class, are dominated by well-paid executives totally uninterested in their members’ well-being. They have collaborated to impose concessions while seeking to keep workers tied to the Democratic Party. Against the existing trade unions, the IYSSE calls for the building of independent rank-and-file workplace, education, and neighborhood committees to unify various sections of workers and youth in a common struggle.

Above all, the working class needs its own political party, in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans, the parties of the ruling class. The IYSSE rejects the position that these parties can be reformed or pressured.

In 2008, many young people voted for Obama hoping for “change” from the Bush administration. But Obama brought only war, state murder, poverty, inequality, and unemployment.

This experience shows that there can be no change through the existing political parties. The US is a democracy in name only; behind the façade of elections lies a dictatorship of the financial aristocracy.

The IYSSE seeks to build a mass political movement of the working class that will fight for power, establish a workers’ government, and reorganize society on a democratic, egalitarian and rational basis.

FOR SOCIALISM AND INTERNATIONALISM

The two basic features of capitalism—private ownership of the means of production and the division of the world economy along national lines—block the rational use and development of mankind’s productive forces. None of the problems humanity confronts can be dealt with on a national level.

The problems faced by working people and youth of every country are fundamentally the same. In all countries, the IYSSE opposes nationalism, chauvinism, and racism, which are means to divide and weaken the working class. Working people of all countries must join together in a common struggle.

Socialism—the rational and democratic control of the economy to meet social need, not private profit—arises as a historical necessity from the breakdown of capitalism. The IYSSE has unshakable confidence in the development of an international socialist movement because socialism corresponds to the objective interests of the working class, the vast majority of humanity.

FOR THE REBIRTH OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality, the student movement of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), fights for the revival of a socialist movement among young people throughout the country, as part of an international socialist movement of the entire working class.

The IYSSE stands in the tradition of revolutionary socialism, from the origins of Marxism in the 1840s, through the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the implacable struggle, led by Leon Trotsky, against the bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

In the 21st century, the IYSSE, SEP and ICFI are fighting to unify and mobilize the working class and youth internationally, to prepare the working class for the conquest of political power and the establishment of a genuinely democratic, egalitarian and socialist society.

JOIN THE FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM! JOIN THE IYSSE!

We urge all students to study the program, history and analysis presented on the World Socialist Web Site. Make the decision to join and build the IYSSE and help build a club of the IYSSE at your school or university.