About the Conference

The first months of 2011 have seen a major growth of working class struggle around the world. In the Middle East and North Africa, the self-immolation of a young working class youth--in protest over unemployment and poverty--sparked mass uprisings that brought down two US-backed dictators in Tunisia and Egypt. In the United States, a powerful movement of workers and youth is emerging, currently centered in Wisconsin, against brutal budget cuts and the destruction of workers' rights.

There is a growing mood of resistance and opposition throughout the United States and internationally. For far too long, the interests of the vast majority of the population have been sacrificed to increase the wealth and profits of the corporate and financial elite. The economic crisis of 2008 was followed by the handout of trillions of dollars to the banks. Now, the same corporations and their political representatives are demanding that workers pay through the elimination of basic social programs and services.

As they start to fight back, workers confront the problem of leadership and organization. The political system in the US is just as unresponsive to their interests as the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain. In states throughout the country, the Democratic Party, in alliance with the trade unions, is implementing cuts that will have no less devastating an impact on workers than the cuts that have provoked mass opposition in Wisconsin. As for Obama, he is currently in close discussion with the Republicans over how much and which social programs will be slashed, even as corporate profits soar thanks to the policies of his administration.

The war of the ruling class at home is accompanied by the expansion of war abroad. After escalating the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Obama administration, with the support of France and Britain, has launched a new intervention in Libya, with incalculable consequences. This new war has received the full support of the supposedly "left" supporters of the Democratic Party, who have done everything they can to contain mass opposition to militarism within the framework of the two-party system.

This coordinated attack by the ruling class testifies to the failure of the capitalist profit system. The subordination of workers’ living standards and the essential social needs of a modern and immensely complex society to the capitalists' insatiable drive for profit and the accumulation of personal wealth is no longer tolerable.

A new leadership must be built. These conferences will be devoted to a discussion of the organizational forms and political program needed for the working class to fight back.