KARL MARX @ 200
By Dr. Togba-Nah Tipoteh
Founding Leader, Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA)
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| Karl Marx |
Today, May 5, 2018, marks the 200th Birth Anniversary of Karl Mark.
Let us examine the Work of Karl Marx and draw lessons from it that can be used to make living conditions better for the Working People of the world.
Here are the dismal living conditions of the Working People of the World:
1. Half of the world's population lives on less than USD2'50 a day.
2. One-fourth of the world's population lives on less than USD125 a day.
3. 80% of the world's population lives on less than USD10 a day'
4. 80% of the world's income and wealth is accounted for by 1% of the world's population
5. The gap between the poor and the rich within countries is widening and this gap between poor and rich countries is also widening.
Sources: World Bank Annual Reports; International Monetary Fund Annual Reports; United Nations Annual Human Development Reports.
USD60 billion would be needed to eliminate extreme poverty. This amount is equal to one-fourth of the income of the 100 richest persons in the world (OXFAM). Why is not this USD60 billion amount being used to eliminate extreme poverty? The main contribution in Marx's Work to thought and action globally is found in his indication of the relationship between capital and labor in the Capitalist System and its non-sustainability. According to Marx, Capital needs labor to thrive but Labor does not need Capital to thrive. Capital uses a variety of historically attained means to force Labor into a relationship centered around the production of goods and services. As this relationship is dismal because Capital takes what labor deserves/works for. Upon labor realizing the dismal nature of this relation and as labor is not suicidal, the relationship becomes non-sustainable. And this is how the capitalist system is rendered erosive. This does not happen through the initiative of the capitalist but through the action of labor, conscientized labor. It is impossible for the capitalist who benefits from the capitalist system to take action consciously that renders the system erosive. There are persons who call themselves progressives who continue to look up to the capitalist to be the bearer of the solution to the dismal conditions faced by labor. A progressive is a person who takes action to improve the living conditions of Working People sustainably.
In my 2018 May Day Keynote Address to the Liberia Labor Congress (LLC), I indicated that the Victims in the Capital-Labor relationship are the Source of the Solution to the dismal conditions of Labor rather than the Perpetrators. In this direction, I mentioned that relatively low levels of consciousness among Workers result in the election of bad leaders who place Workers in the grip of the Perpetrators. Therefore, the work of progressives must be stepped up urgently to raise political awareness to prevent the further erosion of the living conditions of Workers. Workers have the numbers to elect leaders who have the record of working to build sustainable democratic institutions but their numbers are used in unfair electoral systems to elect the Perpetrators. Many of the leaders of Workers are driven by money, thereby becoming slaves of management and politicians who work to sustain the poverty-generating system.
It is essentially the realization of the indispensability of the role of labor in uprooting the system of injustice and replacing it with the system of justice that led to the formation of the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA), now in its 45th year. With Liberia being the second poorest country in Africa and the fourth poorest country in the world (World Bank; IMF) and having the world's worst record (62%) of children who should be in school but are not in school (UNICEF), while some "progressives" are running after government jobs and leaders of workers continue to be driven by money, in the midst of the poverty-generating system of production of raw materials for export, clearly, MOJA has much work to do.
DOWN WITH MONKEY WORK BABOON DRAW! UP WITH MONKEY WORK MONKEY DRAW!