In the face of capitalist bankruptcy and chaos: class struggle is the only way forward!

Everywhere prices are shooting up: for fuel, food and housing! Workers everywhere face lay-offs or mass unemployment and worsening living conditions. Climate-related disasters are widespread with thousands of deaths due to extreme temperatures, wildfires and floods. War and mass slaughter proliferates! Right before our eyes, capitalism is unleashing all manner of calamities in a destructive whirlwind, and the bourgeoisie, along with its states and governments, whether left-wing, right-wing, ‘socialist’, liberal, or populist is incapable of providing any kind of solution.

An Economic Crisis of Extreme Severity

The ruling class’s impotence is due to the uncontrollable economic crisis afflicting capitalism, a crisis potentially far more severe than that of the 1930s and than the one that threatened to bring down the financial system in 2008. Its scale reveals the utter failure of a decaying mode of production. The war in the Middle East has further exacerbated the crisis by disrupting global trade and driving up energy prices. Military adventures, tariffs, trade wars, and blackmail: it is now a case of every nation for itself, with each national bourgeoisie fighting for its survival against all the others amid a total global anarchy. International cooperation is unravelling, the global market is fragmenting and overproduction is exacerbating. All states are buckling under the burden of debts that have reached astronomical levels, whilst global military spending stands at $2,887 billion.[1] This arms race deepens the debt, fuels inflation and drains the social spending budgets.

Workers are footing the bill

The attacks on workers are mounting and will only intensify. This is the only possible 'agenda' for every government, present and future. Unemployment and job insecurity are widespread. Both are at record highs, particularly for young people worldwide. Even Germany, the flagship of European capitalism, is undergoing a structural crisis unprecedented since 1945 and it is impoverishing the working class. The automotive industry is taking a direct hit: Volkswagen plans to cut 100,000 jobs by 2030, Bosch 13,000, and Mercedes is demanding an increase in working hours of 30 or even 40 percent! And further attacks are being prepared against the already strained healthcare systems and pensions, with plans for the retirement age to be raised from 67 to 70.

A resurgence of fighting spirit

Faced with this doomsday scenario and the sacrifices demanded to be able to finance rearmament, the anger is immense. The working class, whether unemployed, employed, or retired, blue-collar or white-collar, began to fight back during the “Summer of Discontent” of 2022 in the United Kingdom, demonstrating a tremendous fighting spirit after decades of apathy and resignation.

In the aftermath the anger and fighting spirit have shown no signs of abating. While workers in the United Kingdom were still fighting, those in France took to the streets en masse during the movement against pension reform (in 2023); then it was Canada’s and the United States’ turn (2024), followed by Belgium (2025), and many more countries followed.

The fighting spirit of the working class is expressed in numerous conflicts that remain scattered, and above all among small minorities who are questioning the needs and means of the struggle, as well as the prospects and future of society.

Strikes are on the rise in France, Italy, and Germany but this fighting spirit is still scattered and hesitant; the working class still feels largely powerless and has difficulty taking the initiative. So far, these outbursts of anger co-exist without recognising themselves as a single class movement defending shared international interests. The working class is still therefore vulnerable to a corporatist logic and to being confined within the company, the department, or the sector.

A step forward

The situation, however, is beginning to change. At Airbus in Spain, from August 25 to September 4, 2026, 14,000 employees from several sites (Getafe, Seville, Illescas, Albacete, Cádiz) staged an indefinite strike demanding wage increases. This struggle has begun to demonstrate the strength of workers’ solidarity, with the workers having taken control of their struggle by organising mass general assemblies for debating and making collective decisions. The struggle at Airbus is inspiring but we must not stop there. The working class must go even further, clearly opposing the divisions put in place by the bourgeoisie’s forces on the ground, starting with the unions and left-wing parties that have consistently sabotaged the movement by succeeding in isolating workers within the workplace or steering them toward democratic institutions, like elections, and in the defence of the nation.

Taking the struggle into our own hands

Fighting together: this is the challenge facing the entire working class. It must assert its autonomy by recognising itself as one united class, by refusing to be kept isolated, by opening its general assemblies to all proletarians and by creating a balance of forces through calling for other sectors to join the movement. Not in a purely platonic way, but through dispatching mass delegations to immediately expand the struggle by actively seeking solidarity from all sectors, whether public or private, in both small and large businesses without exception.

By confronting the attacks and starvation wages, the working class is beginning to confront exploitation and the blows of a deepening crisis. In doing so, it is opening a tiny gateway toward the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. The road to communism will be long, difficult, uncertain and fraught with obstacles. But it is the only one that can offer a future for humanity!

WH, September 14, 2026

 

 

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[1] We must also take into account the staggering costs of environmental destruction.