The true face of "politics for the people"(with thanks to Brazilian comrades -1945 Voice of the People)
The true face of "politics for the people"(with thanks to Brazilian comrades -1945 Voice of the People)Western politicians and their spokesmen keep repeating like a mantra the notion of a "politics for the people". They claim that their policy represents the will of the people and guarantees the people's interests. They go so far as to label the so-called Western democracy "politics for the people", proclaiming that it is not a policy aimed only at certain layers or classes, but rather a policy in which politicians and the popular masses merge in a unity of feelings, a policy that extends the fundamental rights of the people to the maximum – and they argue that the world should accept it.
It is nothing more than an absurd sophistry to cover up the anti-popular character of the capitalist system.
In essence, the so-called "politics for the people" is nothing other than politics for the privileged minority. It is a policy in which few enjoy privileges while the majority are disenfranchised and live in poverty; a policy that legalizes the oppression and dictatorship of the ruling elites over the popular masses.
The "politics for the people" that the West preaches is ultimately a policy in favour of the big capitalist monopolists, and not a policy for the broad masses of the working people.
At the present time, the fallacies about "equality for all" and "the realisation of the interests of the people", so blatantly propagated by the politicians of the capitalist countries, are nothing but empty words which never come true.
In any society, for there to be a truly people-oriented policy, it is necessary that the popular masses occupy the position of owners of the State and society, fully fulfill the role of owners, and that their will and demands are converted into effectively implemented policies.
However, in the Western world, the owners of the state are not the people, but the wealthy minority. The privileged position of this minority is ensured by the system itself, and under the guise of "serving the people", openly anti-people policies are put into practice.
In the West, all state policies are designed according to the will and demands of the rich, and government activities rely on them. The ruling class, which monopolizes wealth and power, enjoys privileges while violating the dignity of the working masses with impunity. The oppression and exploitation of the workers constitute the very mode of existence of the regime. A policy which regards the masses of the people only as the object of politics, and excludes them from it, can never be a real policy for the people.
From the beginning, Western politicians have not had the working masses in mind. What they call "the people" are, in reality, the capitalists and other exploiters who make up only a minority of society. The politicians themselves are representatives of the interests of the capitalists.
Proponents of capitalism claim that "politics for the people" means the participation of all citizens in parliamentary elections or political activities. But in practice, the capitalists buy power with money, prevent workers' representatives from taking seats in parliament, and restrict their political activities. Between the billionaires who hold immense wealth and the poor working masses, there can be no socio-political equality.
"Politics for the people" is also the name given to the multi-party system. But it is nothing more than a camouflage to cover up the bourgeois dictatorship. In Western countries there is multi-party politics, but almost all parties are parties of the exploiting classes.
In the capitalist countries, the bourgeois parties take turns in power, shaking the so-called "program" as if they were going to carry out a policy for the people, but everything is nothing but a political farce. The parties that come to power are nothing more than puppets manipulated by the monopoly capitalists. In reality, it is not the ruling parties, but the monopoly capitalists. To cover up their domination with the appearance of "politics for the people", they also organize the spectacle of elections, but the electoral competition is not about programs, but about money. Those who pour the most money into elections – the monopoly capitalists and their representatives – are the ones who rise to positions of power.
Such governments will never come out of policies in favor of the working masses. Political analyst and social activist Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has said that the influence of the wealthy in policymaking is directly proportional to their level of wealth.
In capitalist countries, politics is essentially a politics of money, entirely determined by money. This monetary policy cuts across all spheres – from elections to the drafting of laws to the execution of policies – effectively excluding the popular masses from the right to participate in political life. Only the wealthy can enjoy the so-called "political rights" enshrined in the constitution.
Power, in the hands of the privileged layer of Western countries, serves as an instrument for the realization of an anti-people dictatorship. The bourgeoisie never grants political freedom to the working masses. To maintain its privileged position, it fascistizes the mechanisms of domination, systematically strengthens the repressive machine and ruthlessly represses workers who demand freedom, democracy and the right to survival.
Just recently, in several regions of France, more than a million people held demonstrations against the government's austerity policies. In response, authorities deployed tens of thousands of police, drones, and armored forces, unleashing an unbridled crackdown on protesters and arresting large numbers of people.
The situation is no different in other Western countries. In all of them, a vast arsenal of repressive laws and police and military apparatuses is mobilized to monitor and permanently restrict the activity of progressive parties, social organizations and even the daily lives of citizens. The moment something is considered a threat to its interests, the bourgeoisie does not hesitate to mercilessly wield the sword of repression.
The fact that Western politicians try to disguise their dictatorship with the banner of "politics for the people" is a real mockery and an insult to the working masses who aspire to an authentic people's politics.
The "politics for the people" trumpeted by the West is, in reality, an anti-people policy that reduces the working masses to slaves of capital, mere talking instruments, sucked to the last drop of their sweat and blood by the financial conglomerates.
Within the Western political system, built for the privileged layer, one cannot expect any policy that serves the interests of the masses. In the West, politics has become an instrument of enrichment. The ruling elites control the legislative, executive and judiciary, fabricating laws and decisions that favor them at will, while ruthlessly exploiting workers. This inevitably leads to the grave violation of the human rights of the broad masses of the working people.
Western countries even hypocritically applied some "social welfare" policies, but today they abandon them. The reason is unique: such policies reduce the profits of the monopoly corporations that dominate political control. Thus, the right to life and work of workers, as well as the right to survival of the weakest social sectors, are easily sacrificed under the pretext of "democratic consensus".
The Singaporean newspaper "Lianhe Zaobao" noted in an article that Western politics has long been rotten: wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, the poor become even poorer, while the rich get richer; politics is in the hands of the wealthy and politicians, serving private interests; The people cannot exert real influence on the political field. This feeling of impotence, disappointment with traditional parties and disbelief in governments has become the general atmosphere of society.
Exploitation and plunder against the masses of the people is the immutable essence of capitalism. Capitalism is, in itself, a society dominated by capital, whose mode of existence is the multiplication of capital through the obtaining of profit. The whole history of capitalism is the process of expanding and reinforcing the exploitation of man in the name of the unlimited pursuit of profit and the accumulation of capital.
In capitalist countries, tens of millions of workers live tormented by hunger and misery, and the number of homeless people wandering the streets increases day by day. The pressure of penury even causes tragedies of collective suicides.
Western politicians proclaim that increasing budgets in science and technology and investing in these sectors would lead to a growth of the productive forces and, consequently, to a greater distribution of goods to workers and the construction of a more prosperous society. But reality shows exactly the opposite.
In Western countries, the fruits of science, technology and the creative work of the masses are monopolized by a restricted layer, being diverted to the wealth and luxury of this minority. Money corrupts men and tramples on human dignity.
The idea that scientific-technical development and development of the productive forces would bring improvements to the living conditions of workers is untenable. In the past, even with the introduction of new techniques that increased commodity production, the masses could not escape poverty. The streets have always been full of unemployed.
Even today, when it is claimed that even artificial intelligence technology has been incorporated and that the productive forces have reached a highly advanced development, the reality remains the same: the phenomenon of the "rich getting richer and poorer and poorer getting poorer" is accelerating, and social inequality has reached an extreme point never seen in the history of humanity.
In order for workers to live abundantly, it is indispensable to have adequate socio-economic conditions – that is, that they themselves own the state power and the means of production.
However, in the West, the monopoly capitalists firmly control the means of production and dominate everything. They regard human beings not as worthy subjects but only as tools for commodity production, as powerless existences ruled by gold. As long as the capitalists continue to monopolize the means of production, the capitalist exploitation of the workers will be inevitable, and the desire of the masses to free themselves from all forms of domination and servitude and to enjoy an equal and abundant life can never be realized.
Within capitalist society, unemployment is equivalent to death. Capitalists exploit this situation to chain workers to high-performance machines, continually increasing the intensity of labor. Thus, many workers become deformed, physically and mentally disabled, and even lose their lives due to work overload.
Capitalist countries ruthlessly suck the sweat of workers using different economic mechanisms: they reduce wages that should be paid fairly to extract more profit; they also exploit through trade, credit and the state budget.
This phenomenon has worsened even more in recent years.
Although the servile spokesmen of the West incessantly trumpet "democracy" and "people's welfare", the reactionary and anti-people nature of the capitalist state system cannot be concealed in any way.
The anti-people characteristic of the capitalist system, which imposes on the working masses only helplessness and unhappiness, manifests itself more and more naked with the passage of time.
Ri Hak Nam
Rodong Sinmun
