May Day 2008

Towards a new international movement of the exploited

Against neo-liberalism, against war, against hunger and poverty

For peace, food and housing for all, for safe and secure jobs

Towards the libertarian alternative!

 

A harsh reaction has been unleashed by States around the world against the cycle of social, labour and political struggles which have been carried on by the movements of opposition to neo-liberalism since the late 20th century, with a consequent general worsening of living conditions for millions of proletarians who are increasingly enslaved by capitalist exploitation.

In every country, the primacy of finance as the motor of the economy, with its lethal rules based on interest rate increases, credit clampdowns and social dumping, is provoking a grave crisis. Its results can be seen in millions of families falling further into debt and impoverishment and losing their homes and their economic security. The workforce is being concentrated into more intensive and highly flexibilized units of exploitation in order to strengthen supply and competition in macro-economic areas (EU enlargement, the re-launch of Mercosur and ASEAN, the WTO crisis, etc.). The concentration of production into monopolies on an international basis (motor industry, energy, telecommunications, agro-chemical/pharmaceuticals, etc.) is destroying social wealth and jobs and producing a food crisis without precedent. Economic development is tending to create a neuron-like network of privileged sites and related corridors of capital and raw materials around which public and private investment can coagulate, thereby impoverishing the large areas in between. And the background to all this is the state of endemic war generated by the USA for control over the system of imperialist dependencies, the increasing use of militarism and nationalism (and all its religious and ethnic varieties) in order to control/de-stabilize an area which goes from the Middle East throughout Asia and Africa and to destroy the autonomy of the exploited classes by forcing them to side with a particular State, religion or elite to whom they entrust their present and future destiny of exploitation.

In this difficult situation, the social, labour and political struggles of the proletariat in every country are seeking to resist the various forms of capitalist exploitation and the harsh repression that the States have unleashed, making it increasingly evident that today we need to:

• ensure the total independence of all mass struggles and movements from all political and economic institutions (no State, government or market has any interest in fighting neo-liberalism);
• demand peace, so that it can the cradle for the re-emergence of civil society and allow the development of struggles for the emancipation of today's downtrodden classes;
• work to rebuild the autonomy and the role of the exploited classes, the defence and reconstruction of their free and independent organizations, as a condition and indispensable factor in the struggles against neo-liberalism and war in every country of the world.

Anarchist Communist and Libertarian Communist organizations support, promote and assist every initiative aimed at rebuilding a large international movement

• against neo-liberalism, denouncing the crimes of exploitation and bringing solidarity to proletarian organizations and local movements fighting against local or foreign bourgeois aggression;
• against war, demanding ceasefires, demilitarization and disarming by every State and ethnic or religious elite, who are united in their contempt for the lives of proletarians;

a great international movement whose heart and whose base lie in the grassroots social, labour, cultural, political and anti-militarist organizations, and also in their ability to federalize the struggles that develop, on a national and international level.

To that end, we support:

• the horizontal creation of networks, coalitions and forums inspired by the practice of self-organization, self-management and direct action, which represent the collective capacity for acting against the contradictions and violence of neo-liberalism and develop the greatest possible international solidarity;
• all efforts to contribute to the development of the international class-struggle anarchist movement, by supporting its political networks and its capacity for social insertion in the struggles and struggle fronts in support of popular power, so that we can spread the anarchist communist project and put the libertarian alternative into practice.

Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici (Italy)

Workers Solidarity Movement (Ireland)

Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front (South Africa)

1 May 2008