In times of crisis, the capitalists will usually deny that anything is wrong for as long as possible. Just a few months ago, Chrystia Freeland told the country we’re not in a recession, but a “vibe-cession”. But there is a crisis, and it’s become too pressing to ignore.
This is the topic of a recent paper, “Future Lives: Social mobility in question”, written by Policy Horizons Canada, which “is the Government of Canada’s centre of excellence in foresight” (our emphasis).
So what do they predict? Complete doom and gloom for the foreseeable future.
The authors lay out a “hypothetical” situation where, by 2040, “upward social mobility is almost unheard of in Canada.”
In this scenario, “post-secondary education is no longer considered a reliable path to social mobility”, “owning a home is not a realistic goal for many”, “people see inheritance as the only way to get ahead”, and “society increasingly resembles an aristocracy.”
Their timeline is way off. They’re not describing some far-away future. This is already the reality for millions of working class people.
But what do they say that the consequences of this be?
“The Canadian economy could shrink,” and wealth “may concentrate in the hands of a small number of very wealthy order people.” “People’s mental health may suffer.” “Workers may seek greener pastures elsewhere.” They even warn that people might return to “small-scale agriculture” and “hunt, fish, and forage” just to get by!
It is true that living standards are quickly declining. There’s no avoiding this under capitalism. Capitalism is in its deepest crisis ever, and in a crisis it’s always the working class that suffers the most.
But there are two sides of any crisis. As suffering accumulates, so does anger and the feeling that the world must change. Capitalism creates its own gravediggers.
The report warns that people might blame “Big Tech”, “CEOs” or “capitalism”. People might demand “profound revisions of certain systems”. “Trade unions, including non-traditional freelancer unions, could grow in power as workers become frustrated,” they say. “In extreme cases, people could reject the state’s legitimacy,” leading to “civil disobedience”.
This is exactly right. It’s not just that they “might” blame capitalism. They will blame capitalism. Never before has capitalism been so discredited. And it discredits itself further each and every day. Already, there’s been an upsurge of people looking for revolutionary ideas, and millions more will be radicalized in the near future. All that’s missing is a revolutionary party that can guide anger in the right direction.
So let’s organize now, and prepare to get rid of this system once and for all.
