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By Freedom Road Socialist Organization |

June 12, 2020

If you have been out in the streets this past few weeks, the odds are good that youve been thinking about the difference between the kind of change this system has to offer, and the kind of change this country needs. Capitalism is failed system that thrives on exploitation, inequality and oppression. The reactionary and racist Trump administration has made the pandemic worse. The unfolding economic crisis we are experiencing is the worst since the 1930s. Monopoly capitalism is a dying system and we need to help finish it off. And that is exactly what Freedom Road Socialist Organization is working for.

Freedom Road has been, and will be, going out to build the protests against police terror and insisting on community control of the police. We fight hard for reforms that improve peoples lives. But at the end of the day, more is needed.

We need revolution. A revolution where the wealthy are divested of their riches and rule of the working class is established - socialism. As it stands, the United States is a jailhouse for the oppressed. Things can, will, and must change.

We are in an upsurge the peoples struggle the likes of which have been unseen since the early 1970s. The Black-led rebellions that have taken place in Minneapolis and other cites show that many are tired of living in the same old way.

Revolutionary change takes revolutionaries and revolutionaries need organization. Our rulers are well-organized so we need to be too. Freedom Road Socialist Organization is a multinational organization. Our members are African American, Chicanos and Latinos, white, and Native Americans. Every successful revolution has at its core an organization that could unite the many to defeat the few. It has been done elsewhere and it can be done here too.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization is a Marxist-Leninist organization. We are reds and proud of it. Be it China, Russia, Cuba, or any other country where the rule of capital was brought to an end, revolutionaries employing Marxism-Leninism were at the forefront. We are serious about winning.

So, if you have been thinking about what it means to be a revolutionary in the United States today, go to the website FRSO website at frso.org and check out what we have to say. Then hit Join.

Its like Karl Marx said, we have nothing to lose but our chains. And we have a world to win.

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The time is now to join a revolutionary organization: Join Freedom Road Socialist Organization - Fight Back! Newspaper

According to Lakey, earlier, the Nordic countries were feudal and dominated by the rich elite but after sustained nonviolent workers protests and strikes, the government yielded and they designed an economy that would serve the people, not the elite.

What were these values? Free healthcare, childcare, education through graduate school, old age pension, highly subsidised transit, low cost housing for the less wealthy and many other services that the poor of other countries dont have.

Lakey asserts that the Nordic countries have virtually wiped out poverty.

This they accomplished by recognising the central idea of work since work is important for self-respect and the economic productivity of the country.

In short, the governments policy is full employment.

The work, however, is not back-breaking. Lakey points out that according to the OECDs 2012 data, the average number of hours a person works annually in Norway is 1,418 while in the United States, it is 1,790.

Another OECD study showed that Norwegian workers productivity was 27.8 per cent higher per hour for hours worked as compared to the US.

Sweden is experimenting with a six-hour day apparently and claiming increased productivity.

The best-known part of the Nordic model may be the high taxes.

Lakey says that the high taxes are justified because in Nordic countries you get what you paid for.

He also points out that, in spite of the high taxes, the growth of Sweden (for instance) was higher than the US over the period from 2000 to 2010.

According to Lakey, the Norwegian entrepreneurs are not complaining, they actually view the tax rates as fair and transparent.

Lakey covers more ground, talking of the recent Nordic proposal of moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewables.

I personally dont see how Norway would be able to divest entirely the oil wealth but Lakey says it is possible.

Towards the latter half of the book, Lakey refers to the economist Jeffrey Sachs who questions free marketers claim that high taxes reduce prosperity.

Sachs famously said: On an average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on most measures of economic performance[the free market economist Friedrich] Von Hayek was wrong.

According to Sachs, the Nordic model is not Von Hayeks road to serfdom.

It is instead the path to fairness, economic equality and international competitiveness.

Thus Viking Economics is a strong endorsement of the Nordic welfare society and urges that the US should take this route to prosperity and egalitarianism.

Let us now look at the other book: Scandinavian Unexceptionalism. The author Nima Sanandaji agrees that the Nordic societies are uniquely successful.

Not only are they characterised by high living standards, but also by other attractive features such as low crime rates, long life expectancies, high degrees of social cohesion and even income distributions. Various international rankings conclude that they are among the best, if not the best, places in the world in which to live.

But it would be a mistake, Sanandaji argues, to claim that Scandinavia is successful because of high taxes and the welfare state model.

The so-called third-way policy between socialism and capitalism is not the real reason for the success.

The Nordic countries have homogeneous populations with high levels of trust, a strong work ethic, civic participation, social cohesion, individual responsibility and family values.

These cultural features predate the welfare state.

Yes, the Nordic societies have more equality but they were relatively equal even before the establishment of the welfare society.

Yes, there is no poverty in Scandinavia, but there are no poor people of Scandinavian origin in the US too.

Culture matters.

It is not the success of the welfare state but the character of the people.

Third way policies were introduced in the Nordic countries between 1970 and 1995.

This only resulted in the undermining of economic freedom, lowering of entrepreneurship and crowding out of private enterprise.

In 2004, states Sanandaji, 38 of the 100 businesses with highest revenues in Sweden were entrepreneurial: in other words, started as privately owned businesses within the country. Of these firms, 21 were founded before 1913. Additionally, 15 were founded between 1914 and 1970. Only two had been formed after 1970. If the 100 largest firms are instead ranked according to how many people they employed, none of the largest entrepreneurial firms were founded after 1970.

How can this dramatic fall in entrepreneurship be explained? Why did Sweden become so heavily dependent on forms that were formed generations ago?....Clearly, one important factor is the changes in economic policy, towards the famous third way between socialism and free markets.

While welfare seems very appealing to the layman, Sanandaji explains that welfare schemes are hugely misused as people go on frequent sick leaves and early retirement.

In a 2014 study, it was shown that the true unemployment level in Sweden had varied between 14 18 per cent since 1996.

In 2013, it was 14 per cent compared to the official statistic of 8 per cent.

Welfare may have removed poverty, but it had made the population dependent on the state with social poverty being a deepening concern: social poverty is when young, able men support themselves on welfare with no studies, no clearly defined plan for the future, simply idling away.

After the mid-1990s, the Nordic societies realised their mistakes and began moving towards free market policies. This has allowed Sweden and others to avoid stagnation.

Sanandaji concludes by saying that normal economic rules that apply to other countries apply to Scandinavian countries too.

Will Scandinavia continue to return to free market roots, asks Sanandaji.

Coming to the present, the coronavirus pandemic has affected the Nordic countries hard, according to Bloomberg.

The Nordic model has come under stress. For instance, the unemployment rate in Norway in some sectors is 10-20 per cent.

This would lead to a reduction in tax revenues.

Norway has recently announced that it would be withdrawing $37 billion from its $950 billion Sovereign Wealth Fund.

This is a momentous decision, akin to when the Saudis announced the sale of a 5 per cent stake in the trillion dollar behemoth Saudi Aramco.

Finland doesnt have a Sovereign Wealth Fund and is finding it difficult to cope.

It seems that the Nordic states will be forced to drastically trim their welfare systems in face of this unanticipated crisis.

They may have to slowly but surely revert back to free markets.

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Third-Way Between Socialism And Capitalism Is Not The Reason For The Success Of Nordic Countries - Swarajya

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) Powerful images from the City of Brotherly Love emerged Saturday afternoon as a sea of protesters crowded the famed Art Museum steps. The demonstration topped off an unprecedented week of peaceful protests, all of which are fighting against police brutality and racial inequality.

PHOTOS: George Floyd Protest At Art Museum Draws Massive Crowd

The protest wrapped up around 3:30 p.m., stretching from the Art Museum to City Hall and back in honor of George Floyd.

(Credit: CBS3)

It was a massive demonstration with thousands of protesters taking to the streets on Saturday afternoon.

It is disrupting the status quo, Eugene Puryear, an organizer and founding member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, said. And we believe thats whats needed to really force change. Not to take politicians at their word, but to say business, as usual, will not take place until it changes.

The protest was organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The group is asking for many things, including defunding the Philadelphia Police Department.

Ashley Jimenez brought her two children to the Art Museum steps to witness what she hopes is history.

This is their world. They need to be part of the change thats happening, Jimenez said. I dont want them to look back and say at this moment, I was playing video games.

Chopper 3 caught a group dancing at the Art Museum steps after the march a moment of triumph after an overwhelmingly peaceful protest.

FULL COVERAGE OF GEORGE FLOYD PROTESTS

Water and snacks were at the ready, passed around throughout the route in the 90-degree heat.

The Philadelphia Police Department provided a perimeter for demonstrators to march with little face-to-face interaction.

I feel like its a real moment across the world, Alexa Rosenthal, a protester, said. Voices never heard are being heard for the first time, and I think the people on the streets can make a difference.

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The sheer number of people protesting was staggering. Eyewitness News stood at Spring Garden Street for over 45 minutes as protesters came by with little loss of enthusiasm.

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Thousands Of Protesters Disrupting The Status Quo To Force Change In Fight Against Racial Inequality, Police Brutality - CBS Philly

In the earliest moments of Tonight We Riot, the recently released video game from Texas worker-owned coop Pixel Pushers Union 512, a pair of pixelated, flag-waving workers square up against riot cops. Theres only one way through, a speech bubble from your comrade reads. Direct action! Through the side-scroll brawler, you liberate and rally a growing crowd of workers fighting against an evil capitalist regime. You dont control just one protagonist; instead, you control the movement. When your avatar is killed, you simply control another worker in the group.

As long as one of us survives, the Revolution will live on, another text pop-up proclaims.

As an unapologetically anti-capitalist release, Tonight We Riot arrives in a time of need. During the pandemic, labor crises and inhumane treatment of workers have rocketed into the spotlight. While Jeff Bezos barrels towards trillionaire status, Amazon workers are reporting worsened conditions and lower pay. Pre-pandemic conditions that were suspect at best are now being recognized as exploitative and evil. Rarely has there been a better time to jump into a fiction where you and your coworkers fight against the tyranny of a money-hungry regime and build a more equitable world for all.

Tonight We Riot is an explicitly socialist offering in an industry that often flirts with but rarely commits to these principles. Influential titles like Bioshock, Borderlands, and The Outer Worlds have, in their own ways, prodded at the cruelties of capitalism. Video game critic Carli Velocci dubbed capitalism the most significant in-game antagonist of 2019. But PPU512 founder and art steward Ted Anderson and programmer Stephen Meyer, the co-creators of Tonight We Riot, wanted to push the needle further.

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What if we just made an honest-to-goodness leftist game that is unapologetically so, where we show that [leftist] structure, we show that there could be this fight, that it could have an actual culmination, that we could go somewhere with it? Anderson tells Observer about the idea behind Tonight We Riot.

On one level, its a cute little pixel art game, says Meyer. But on another, theres a mechanic here thats different from normal game mechanics where theres one protagonist embracing this great man theory of history. No, no, no. Its the movement. Its the people rising up.

Like television, film and books, video games are a space where worldviews are shaped, and culture is produced and reproduced. Meyer references the popularity of military shooter games as a cultural force. Theyre sort of this neo-conservative fantasy, he says. Up until grad school, I still had that view of military might makes right. But while TV and movies are subject to rigorous analysis in mainstream media sources, video games arent subject to the same level of scrutiny outside of the gaming community.

Theres a lot of games that people assume arent political just because they see games as being set aside from other media [or] divorced from the reality that we all share, says Anderson. Its still made by people, and people have lives and biases, and make decisions unconsciously where those biases align.

Tonight We Riot is published by Means Interactive, the newly minted video games arm of worker-owned leftist media company Means TV. Naomi Burton, who cofounded Means along with Nick Hayes in Detroit, explains that theyre in talks with a number of similarly aligned developers. Means deals are structured such that the majority of sales profits go to developers, while Means takes a small percentage. The coops profits are then allocated to the next project.

There hasnt been a game explicitly about toppling capitalism before, says Burton. Seeing those anti-capitalist values that over 50% of young Americans have reflected in a video game makes all of us feel seen and heard, and reminded were not alone in the fight for a better future.

Gaming communities are committed to this vision, too. Socialist Gamers is a community for left-wing gamers to build solidarity and counter far-right gamer culture. They wanted to carve out a place for leftist video game fans to meet and connect without the toxicity thats all too prevalent in online gaming culture, says Leslie, a Boston-based gamer who connected with Socialist Gamers in 2017, and who asked to be identified by her first name. The industry itself still has a long way to go in terms of being more accessible and less misogynistic, but the themes and messaging that games are sharing with players are getting more and more revolutionary, and I think thats absolutely a good thing.

Socialist Gamer staff member Brian, who lives in West Virginia and also asked to be identified by his first name, seeks out releases that align with his left-wing values, but says that while many studios and developers are liberal, most arent anti-capitalist. Theres a large untapped market for leftist ideals to be in video game narratives, but developers are not in any way incentivized to make explicitly leftist games, he says.

California-based gamer Quinny Cascade is heartened by the visibly radical bent of Tonight We Riot and similar works. [It] was made for me, she tells Observer over Twitter DM. Or rather, it was made for Us. Much of any medias intellectual, emotional, and social priming is representative of the status quo. Deviating from that formula can genuinely upset people.

Im a Native American, Pakistani trans woman with ADHD, and Im aggressively and empathetically leftist as hell. Im also angry, loud, and dark skinned. Most things are not created with me in mind [Tonight We Riot is] no more political than any other game is, it just reflects the voices of the unheard. Cascade adds, I think the truth is that most people are anti-capitalist, they just dont know it yet.

The lethal and imbalanced conditions forced by COVID-19 are disproportionately impacting communities that were already marginalized and targeted, a pattern that holds true in the gaming community. Most folks who play video games now are people of color, and almost half are women, says Leslie. Essentially, those who have been most affected by COVID-19. The workers who help make our favorite games get laid off while executives are basically unaffected.

But Leslie also highlights community-building creativity in Animal Crossing and fundraising efforts led by streamers as examples of organizing in the community to counteror at least mitigate the misery brought on bythe pandemics oppressive conditions. Game Workers Unite is an international organization building towards unionizing the game industry, while other worker coops like The Glory Society, founded by Night in the Woods co-creators Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson, and Motion Twin continue to create video games that are the product of equitable working conditions.

This mutual support and collectivism, says Anderson, are the only threats posed by Tonight We Riots socialism. A socialist is only threatening those rich people with living at the same level that everyone else already has to live, but improving those conditions to the point that thats not terrible anymore, he says. These arent unreasonable demands, these are demands for life.

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Tonight We Riot and the Rise of the Socialist Video Game - Observer

The global march toward socialism appeared to be over with the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War.

Now, a wave of socialist ideology has sprung up across the US, seemingly out of nowhere.

A recent Gallup survey shows 43 percent of Americans think socialism would be good for the country. And according to a YouGov poll, 70 percent of Millennials say they'd vote for a socialist president.

How has this ideology gained such a foothold in the US?

Author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza says a key aspect of it is what he calls "the socialist temptation." It's the idea that a person should feel entitled to another person's goods because the socialist hammers home the notion that your neighbor has essentially stolen from you.

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And, he says, socialists don't just rely on persuasion. If they tried to do that, they wouldn't be able to persuade a majority of Americans to support it.

"Socialism has never been in the mainstream of American politics until now," D'Souza said in an interview on Wednesday's 700 Club. "So how do they do it? Well, it's not just the Deep State. They also use the propaganda of academia, and the propaganda of the media, which includes digital censorship. They put people who are not on their side and get them, as they say, 'de-platformed,' get them thrown off of social media. And finally, Antifa. Look at all these roaming bands of thugs on the street. This is the paramilitary wing of American socialism," he said.

D'Souza writes about all this in a new book, United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It.

To see the entire interview with Dinesh D'Souza from Wednesday's 700 Club, click on the box above.

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The Evils of Socialism: Dinesh D'Souza Explains What's Wrong With It and Why so Many Americans Embrace It - CBN News