The late ‘60s and early ‘70s saw a dangerous upsurge in attempts to provide an “academic” justification for racism. In 1969, Arthur Jensen of the University of California, Berkeley argued in the Harvard Education Review that most Black people in the U.S. inherited lower intelligence (I.Q.). In

The Unheavenly City, Edward Banfield of Harvard argued that poor workers were lazy, prone to criminality, uninterested in education, and disinclined to plan for the future, so that poverty in slums and ghettos are inevitable, not caused by racism and exploitation. William Shockley of Stanford University advocated sterilizing persons with IQ scores lower than 100. 

Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members know that racist pseudo-science must be fought. We helped to form the Committee Against Racism (C.A.R.) in order to unite with antiracist students, academics, and workers. In alliance with non-communist students and faculty we organized teach-ins against racism at dozens of colleges and universities.

PLP’s independent communist position was and remains: “No free speech for racists.” We refuted the thinly-veiled gutter racism of these pseudo-scientists in a militant, scholarly book-length pamphlet Racism, Intelligence, and the Working Class. We organized shutting down talks by Jensen, Shockley, and,  beginning in 1974, by Richard Herrnstein of Harvard, whose book The Bell Curve argued that “intelligence” was genetically determined and poverty had nothing to do with racism or capitalist exploitation.

Expose racist pseudo-science 

On November 17–18, 1973, hundreds of faculty, graduate students, and intellectuals attended a two-day conference at New York University sponsored by the Committee Against Racism. By then the nationwide teach-in movement against racism was involving masses in the discussion of racist ideas and practices, their inter-relation, and how to fight against them.

The October 28, 1973, issue of the New York Times carried an antiracist advertisement signed and paid for by 1400 professors, teachers, and others. It read, in part: “Racist theoreticians have recently sought sanction and protection in the concept of academic freedom. This is a subterfuge ... (Academic freedom) is not a license to justify oppression. It was no more intended to protect racism than verbal assault of libel, with which racism has more in common than it has with free intellectual inquiry ... The use of the academy to further racist oppression must be halted.” 

The ad called for specific action against racism and the racists and endorsed the N.Y.U. conference. Organizers at the C.A.R. Storrs, Connecticut headquarters received hundreds of responses to the ad and call for the conference, many with substantial contributions.
PLP’s line of “no free speech for racists” was attacked by liberal anticommunists and confused many honest antiracists as well. In response, PLP and CAR organized a debate at Columbia University. Nat Hentoff, who had attacked PLP and CAR in his column in the Village Voice, represented the view that freedom of speech was “absolute” and “guaranteed by the Constitution.” 

Racist ideas not welcome!

Finley Campbell, national chairperson of CAR and professor at U. Wisconsin, who with scientist Toby Schwartz of the University of Connecticut and PLP, founded CAR, represented an antiracist but non-communist stance. Campbell also exposed the ‘‘neo-racists”’ as scientific charlatans and said that academic freedom did not apply to their type of pseudo-‘research. He pointed out that no university would give a professor tenure to teach ideas that science had disproved for centuries, and that the same limits should be applied to racist pseudo-science.

Bob Leonhardt put forward PLP’s ideas on racism. All history—particularly the history of Nazi Germany—shows that racist ideas mean death and genocide. Racism isn’t only the affair of those who are most directly attacked by it: ultimately, it devastates everyone but the ruling class. Free speech and academic freedom are not an abstract question but a class question—who has the money to own newspapers and TV stations, to publish racist theories in the Harvard Education Review, to fund racist research. 

The only long-range strategy for destroying racism is working-class revolution to get rid of all bosses. Capitalists’ class existence requires racist super-profits as well as their apologists like Shockley. Communists and workers should learn from history. We must fight racism harder than ever in order to advance the revolutionary process.

Only communism can defeat fascism!

I have been having frequent conversations with my base about fascism. I am both amazed at its emergence in everyday speech and soberly aware of how much work still needs to be done for people to understand what fascism actually is and not be confused by the rapidly developing bosses’ propaganda on the subject, mired in mechanical thinking and antiquated stereotypes. 

“It’s Trump who has brought it on us. Unforced error.”

“Of course it’s fascism. The Republicans are fascist.”

“I’m not comfortable with the word and how easily people throw it around.” 

“How can you say the ‘liberal bosses’ are the greater danger when they are the ones fighting fascism?”

These are just some of the things friends (and even Party members) have said to me when we’ve discussed the issue. 

I have been continuing to stress the following points with people, grateful that I am engaging so many after years of being accused of “exaggerating.” 

Fascism is not primarily about a single dictator or “authoritarian figure” (the obvious reference being Trump). It is rather a decisive move by a capitalist RULING CLASS to more directly seize the reins of government and power to guarantee profits in a time of prolonged crisis. 

Fascism is a feature of a global capitalist system. Multiple countries around the world have resorted to fascism to control their own working class and maintain power over their rivals, and imperialist powers like the U.S., Europe, and China have created and propped up fascist regimes in other countries for their own interests, even as some of these imperialists have maintained the mask of “bourgeois democracy.”

The development of fascism is a process. It’s not so important (or even accurate) to determine if we are “in” fascism or “not quite there yet.” 

What is important is to realize that the rulers build fascism out of weakness, because they cannot rule in a more “tolerant” way. Capitalism is by nature a violent system, and many workers have made the argument that “regular capitalism” has been treating certain sections of the working class (e.g., Black workers) with fascist-like impunity for years. 

We need to use terms like fascism, not because we like political jargon, but to be accurate in understanding that fascism does represent a qualitative change from a more liberal “democratic” cover. It’s still capitalism, but fascism represents more direct control by the ruling class over their government and more intense and vicious attacks on the working class, as we are seeing right now in the U.S. 

RACISM continues to be the dominant way the ruling class divides workers, and its most potent weapon. The cutting edge of fascism is intensified racism, and our mightiest, only true weapon is MULTIRACIAL WORKING CLASS UNITY. 

Far from fighting fascism, the liberal ruling class (the dominant wing of the U.S. for years) ushered it in! For years they have been eroding benefits workers fought hard for and locking down their institutions as their global empire is threatened on all sides by rival imperialists like Russia and China. It’s similar to Gaza: prior to Oct. 7th, Israel had slow genocide and an open-air prison. After Oct. 7th, they have full-on genocide and full-scale war. The so-called liberal-Democratic opposition to Trump is nothing more than a split over how to rule the U.S. If they succeed in wresting control from the Republicans and Trump, they will—like Biden before them—maintain much of the Trump infrastructure for their own ends. Fascism will only grow until WE WORKERS defeat it!

To be clear, I definitely don’t overwhelm my base with this list of points! I have rather been LISTENING to what they have to say and offering one or maybe two points for them to ponder until we discuss again. I have learned—I try!—not to talk TO my base, but rather WITH them. I am finding these discussions in their infancy. In most cases, this is one of the first times my friends and colleagues have discussed fascism in any depth. It’s a lot to take in! My solution is to have multiple conversations, and to struggle with them to join our study groups to explore these issues more deeply and collectively.

The overall lesson I am coming to understand after years of study is that fascism is both a global phenomenon and an integral part of capitalism’s machinery, along with its periodic booms and busts, its anarchic overproduction of goods, its imperialist addiction to expanding markets, the resulting inter-imperialist competition followed by inevitable wars for dominance, and the racism that is intimately embedded in how capitalism works. One last thing I realized during the PLP summer project in Boston is that the development of fascism will continue to intensify until WE defeat it. The world is already carved up, and the bosses can only consume each other (and us!) with their endless wars for profit. 

I am finding a tremendous openness to PLP’s line on fascism, even as we have a long, long way to go. We owe it to the working class to patiently and resolutely struggle with them. We say workers can’t vote out fascism. That leaves us, the working class and our revolutionary party, to defeat it once and for all. WE CAN DO IT!
*****

Sky high on solidarity

When  my comrades and I arrived at BWI Airport, we initially didn’t see a crowd. After walking to the other end of the gate, we finally spotted them. The Sky Chefs workers were wearing signs showing sharp critique of the bosses. I joined the others in the picket line, wearing a sign as a show of solidarity. We shouted chants such as “Those dirty bosses! - Boo, boo!” and “No contract, no peace!”

After the picket line ended, I spoke with a member from an outside organization called the Democratic Central Committee. Interestingly enough he calls himself a Maoist, possibly having leanings to communism. I joined one of my comrades to have a chat with one of the union members. He informed us about helping newer workers look over their contracts so they know what they’re getting into. When we settled our conversation, we headed over to the rest of the group. The leader of the picket line gave closing thoughts, thanked the various organizations, and discussed future actions. 

Overall, my experience at the Sky Chefs’ picket line was enjoyable. The energy there was electrifying . A bit of self-criticism is that I only managed to sell five copies of CHALLENGE  out of 15. Even with that, the picket line was still a sharp struggle, and I’m looking forward to attending future demonstrations.
*****

Talk about fascism!

A friend of mine and regular reader of CHALLENGE told me the other day that the word “fascism” occurs in CHALLENGE more frequently than the word “capitalism.” I checked the September 3 issue: fascism occurs 22 times, capitalism -- 18 times.

However, in the “Our Fight” column (always on page 2) and  “The Political Economy of Decline” (p. 3) the relation of fascism to capitalism is discussed.

Nevertheless, I think he has a point: We should always point out that the enemy is capitalism, whether in its more openly violent, racist form (fascism) or wearing the more “liberal”, but still racist, veneer.
*****

Mayoral candidate Mamdani makes his pro-boss positions known

New York Times, 8/28–Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist and current front-runner in the New York City mayor’s race, sought to distance himself on Thursday from the national Democratic Socialists of America platform, which includes proposals to eliminate all misdemeanor offenses and to close local jails. “My platform is not the same as national D.S.A.,” he told reporters after an unrelated event.

When asked whether he wanted to eliminate misdemeanor offenses, he said “no.” “You can’t find that on my platform, because it’s not there,” he said. Mr. Mamdani, a state assemblyman from Queens, has taken steps over the course of his campaign to moderate his image, including by making clear that while he previously expressed support for defunding the police, he has long since abandoned that stance.

U.S. looks to textbooks on how to defeat China

Foreign Affairs, 8/19–In the continental world, the currency of power is land. Most countries, by geography, inhabit a continental world with multiple neighbors…Those with enough power to conquer others…believe the international system should be divided among them into huge spheres of influence…states with an oceanic moat have relative security from invasion…The United States can prevail…by hewing to the successful strategies of maritime power…China has 13 landward neighbors and seven seaward neighbors, and no shortage of disagreements with them. With submarines, shore artillery, drones, and planes, these neighbors can shut down China’s merchant traffic and make its naval passage perilous.

Israelis continue genocide in Gaza

Al Jazeera, 8/31–Israel has stepped up its destruction of Gaza City, as it plans to seize Gaza’s largest urban centre and forcibly displace around one million Palestinians to concentration zones in the south, as it killed at least 78 people across the besieged enclave since dawn, including 32 desperately seeking food…“There is non-stop heavy artillery targeting the Zeitoun area and Jabalia, where we are seeing the systematic demolition of homes. There is hardly any fighting going on, but heavy artillery and bulldozers are moving from one street to the other, destroying all of these residential clusters”...

China and Russia work on replacing U.S. as dominant imperialist powers

The Guardian, 8/31–Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin have met on the sidelines of a showpiece summit in China that seeks to challenge US-led, western-dominated blocs and is being attended by the leaders of more than two dozen nations. The Chinese and Russian leaders, who are closely allied under what they have termed a “limitless” partnership, discussed Putin’s recent meeting with Donald Trump…The Tianjin summit is the largest held by the bloc since it was formed in 2001. The SCO is a key part of Beijing’s push for stronger multilateral alternatives to western or US-led blocs such as NATO.

Contradictions of capitalism migrate to Germany

Der Spiegel, 8/26–They are images for the history books. The photos of young men with backpacks and weary faces who set out on foot in September 2015 from Hungary on their way to Austria and Germany…more than a million asylum seekers arrived in the country – an unprecedented number…Ten years have since passed. The number of refugees in the country has climbed from 750,000 in 2014 to 3.3 million by the end of 2024…German new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, campaigned last winter in part on a significant shift to the country’s migration policies…Since Merz entered the Chancellery, Germany’s federal police force has begun rejecting asylum seekers at the border…

War in Sudan continues to devastate workers

France24, 8/31–Shelling by Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces killed at least seven people and wounded 71 others in El-Fasher…El-Fasher, the last major city in the vast western Darfur region still under army control, has become the most violent front line in the war between the Sudanese army and the RSF…In recent weeks, paramilitary forces have escalated their long-running siege, launching fierce artillery barrages and ground incursions into densely populated neighbourhoods…The RSF, which evolved from the Janjaweed Arab militias accused of genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s, is seeking to wrest full control of the region…

Gangster-in-Chief Donald Trump’s tariff shakedown  is a marker of U.S. imperialism in decline. With capitalism mired in global crisis and China’s power rising, the shift toward fascism in the U.S. is accelerating. Rival gangs of U.S. bosses are at each other’s throats as they scramble to deliver shrinking profits to their billionaire patrons. Within  the U.S., the rulers lean on racist scapegoating and armed-to-the-teeth KKKops to crush dissent. At the same time, they’re igniting proxy wars to prop up U.S. dominance and push the world closer to World War Three.

Neither faction of the U.S. ruling class—the Big Fascists of finance capital nor the isolationist Small Fascists—have a solution for the contradictions of capitalism. For the international working class, the only solution is to build and organize toward communist revolution– on the job and in communities, in schools and hospitals and the bosses’ militaries. We must smash the capitalist state and replace it with a society run by and for the working class.

U.S. caught in a web of its own making

The U.S. emerged from World War II as the world’s biggest imperialist power.  Finance capital–the big oil companies and the multinational banks that finance them– built this imperialist system. They will slaughter millions of workers to try to save it. 
Seventy five years later, the finance capitalists admit that their old liberal world order  has been “diseased” by the rigidity of liberal values (Foreign Affairs, 7/28). To counter rising imperialist China, the Big Fascists must destroy their own rules-based system and the multilateral deals it promoted. Jim Crow Joe Biden paved the way for Trump by bypassing the UN and the World Trade Organization (WTO) whenever they stood in the way, most brazenly in expanding sanctions on Iran and Russia.

Trump’s tariff crusade stems from the same crisis. Decades of falling profits have made trade a matter of “national security.” Tariffs—a tax on imports that mostly gets passed on to workers–mean higher costs and weaker wages. The Small Fascists represented by Trump are lining up behind “Fortress America,” a protectionist drive to shield domestic industries, including domestic oil. They’re also reluctant to  fund and defend the U.S. empire with expensive ground troops. In sum, high tariffs sharpen inter-imperialist rivalry, force workers to pay more, and expose fractures in the U.S. ruling class.

Deals vs. sacrifice

The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency is a tentpole of U.S. global power. Because most global trade, investment, and debt are in dollars, Washington can print as much money as it chooses to finance deficits, force other countries to hold dollar reserves, and weaponize the financial system with sanctions. Since World War II, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the WTO have rigged its “rules-based” governance to maintain dollar supremacy. To maintain  access to the global financial system,  other countries are forced to comply with Washington’s agenda. The liberal Big Fascists defend multilateralism because it cloaks U.S. domination in the guise of cooperation.

The bosses fronted by Trump want a different coercive model. Trump’s tariff strategy links trade and currency policy to military leverage. Targeting China’s dollar reserves while punishing allies like the European Union, India, and Canada (New York Times, 4/7), Trump’s trade chief Jamieson Greer openly calls for bilateral deals to force open foreign markets and extract “strategic sector” investments (NYT, 8/7).

Trump’s volatility on tariffs is pushing the EU and others to build trade systems less dependent on a “fickle United States” (NYT, 7/13), creating openings for Russia and China to advance alternative world orders. Central banks are diversifying reserves, boosting gold, and experimenting with non-dollar currencies (JPMorgan, 7/1). As its manufacturing sector has hollowed out, U.S. dominance has slowly eroded. For workers, however, it matters little whether the Big Fascists defend dollar supremacy or the Small Fascists weaken it.  The result is the same: higher prices, job insecurity, and intensified exploitation. 

In the U.S., the Small Fascists’ trade offensive is paralleled by a campaign of gutter anti-immigrant racism: ICE raids, mass deportations, border militarization. Trump is targeting workers who’ve been displaced by U.S.-driven wars, climate disasters, and predatory trade policies. This mix of external economic coercion and internal repression defines the “Fortress America” project: global confrontation abroad and domestic control at home in service of U.S. imperial power in a world edging toward war.

Trump’s war on data

Economic fragility (see box) is playing out in the U.S. jobs market. After a weak July jobs report, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics head Erika McEntarfer after accusing her, with no evidence, of fudging the numbers. From public health to climate to the economy, Trump’s wholesale assault on data science is designed to prop up illusions of endless growth and prosperity (Financial Times, 8/6).

When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell refused to cut interest rates on command, Trump floated a plan to install a “shadow chair,” a loyalist who would surrender central bank independence and tighten Trump’s control over monetary policy. It would be a desperate move to buy time against the falling rate of profit (FT, 7/10). 

As U.S. manufacturing continues to slump and more than half of industries are already shedding workers (fortune.com, 8/10),  “facts” are becoming optional–another hallmark of rising fascism.

Only solution: communist revolution

While they have different strategies for war and austerity, the two factions of U.S. bosses agree on one thing: Workers will foot the bill for capitalist decline. The profit system always finds money for ICE, war, and genocide, but never for housing, healthcare, or schools. But by organizing within the chaos, waste, and exploitation created by capitalism, we can turn its crises into the basis for our power. 

Under communism,  unchained from the brutal rule of the market and the drive for profit, resources will go where they are most needed: to rebuild infrastructure, expand public health systems, decarbonize energy, and ensure that every person has access to decent housing, education, and meaningful work. 

We must reject the deadly illusion that capitalism can be managed rationally or humanely. Our class needs a communist horizon: a system organized for the needs of the many, not profits for the few. Join Progressive Labor Party and fight for a world without bosses or borders!

The political economy of decline

Capitalism faces deep structural decline. The trends destabilizing the profit system include:

Financialization: In 2023–2024, over half of S&P 500 gains came from seven tech monopolies while core industrial profits fell (FT; The Atlantic, 8/6).

Job Growth Stagnation: Gains are concentrated in low-profit sectors like eldercare and healthcare.

Investment Decline: Speculation in AI data centers surges as industrial investment lags (Bloomberg, 7/31).

Inflation: Service prices rise as growth slows; the June ISM Services Index hit 50.1, signaling stagflation risk (ISM Report, June).

Climate Costs: Extreme weather has cost $2.86 trillion since 2000; annual losses could exceed $3 trillion by 2050 (WEF, 10/12/23).