Happy May Day!

Today marks the day we acknowledge the sacrifices that exploited workers have made to give us all better lives. Without their spilled blood, sweat and tears, we would not have things like the 8-hour work day, and occupational health and safety. The middle class would not exist today if it wasn’t for the struggles of these working people.

As the current pandemic is exposing, we still have a long ways to go to end the exploitation of labour by capitalists. For the first time in modern history, future generations of Canadians are worse off than their parents. The primary cause of this is neoliberalism - that is the globalization of the economy, deregulation, and tax reform that began in the 1970s. These policies have eroded the middle class and has allowed the rich to get even richer as costs sore and personal debt piles up.

Capitalism, after all, relies on sustained spending by consumers to survive, as evidenced by the shuttering of businesses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At what point are we going to realize that this endless growth is nonsensical and unsustainable? How many lost lives is it going to take to realize that capitalism’s sole goal is profit and that it cares not about the damage it does to communities and to the ecosystems we need to survive? When are we going to realize that the profit-motive cares not that we are mentally and physically well?

The first step to freeing ourselves from the shackles of capitalism is by freeing our minds. We must come to terms with the fact that our desire to accumulate things was perfected in the offices on Madison Avenue in NYC and form the basis of Google's and Facebook's business models. We must all accept that we have been fooled since birth to believe our worth is measured by how hard we work and how much profit we can bring in. The cost-cutting, race-to-the-bottom Walmartization of our society has not made us any better. In fact, it has turned many of us into individualist narcissists who won’t stop at anything to get our share.

It doesn't have to be this way. There is a better way to ensure that our society can be happy and healthy, and that the enormous wealth we create is shared more fairly. There is a more democratic way to ensure our children’s future isn’t dictated by people born into privilege. There is a way we can protect our society from the growing authoritarianism we are facing. And that way is democratic socialism.

Democratic socialism puts the needs of society ahead of the wants of the few. It prioritizes the long term goals of humanity ahead of corporate quarterly earnings reports. It puts the social and economic choices we make into the hands of the community instead of that of the elite. It allows humans to be humans instead of being exploited for the benefit of the privileged.

If not for your children, or your children’s children, please join me in the fight for humanity for your neighbour. For the grocery store worker. For the homeless person. For the single mother. For the poor student. For the laid-off labourer.

A good way to start would be to stop measuring your own worth by a currency. Instead, measure it by the amount of empathy you give to your fellow humans and those you may never know. After all, a society grows great when old men and women plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.