Society is in crisis. We see people die from easily solvable issues, such as hunger, thirst, and lack of medical aid. We know this does not need to be the case. Our society could save the widest number of people possible, but the decision is made not to, simply because it would upset the status quo. Resources would need to be spent, or worse, profits could be interrupted in this mission of saving human lives. This line of short-term thinking, seen everywhere in capitalist society, will only accelerate our extinction. Our global society is rife with struggles that are within our capability to solve, however these capabilities are locked behind the control of capitalists and their constant demand for more and more. The stock market must go up, they cry, else all of society would tumble with it. We could, however, forget about the humble stockholder, or the neglected business owner, and instead attempt to turn the power of our modern society towards the good of humanity. That ultimately would, however, lead to something many supposedly fear: Socialism. The evil socialist must be stopped, or else we could see the bourgeoisie, petit to national, disappear entirely. How would the world function if there were no captains of industry? Would this world be something better if no one could benefit from its downfall?

The communist thinks that the answer is yes. The bourgeoisie exist as a class due to their parasitic control over the means of production. We could, in theory and in actuality, dedicate our entire focus as a society on those who would need it most, the working class, the proletariat. Without those whose role in society is to simply extract labor from the proletariat, the fruit of the working class’ labor would be able to be directed solely towards the betterment of society. This is something that almost everyone wishes for some group, whether it be themselves, their family, their nation, or, in the widest sense, the entire world. The progress of history is the progress of our ability to care for our fellow human beings, and very few would argue that the harsh world of the past is superior to the fresh, new world we live in today. While many would idealize the past in a sort of bourgeois nostalgia for dominance, the only real path to a better world is forward. The past is rife with pain and suffering for the vast majority of the population, whether they be an ethnic minority, a sexual minority, or any form of deviation from the cisgendered, heterosexual, white world. While it is easy to look back for those who would fall into the supposed norm of this past world, they too would most likely be but peasants and serfs to a very select few. Some, the Curtis Yarvins, Elon Musks and other fascists of the world, worship this as a supposedly natural order, but the inevitable instability of this conflict means that history also represents a rejection of the unequal paradigm.

To put it simply, the current system we live in could and should improve. No one would argue that the world is perfect in its current state. That being said, the charted path forward, according to many, is that of incrementalism, small steps along the path of history toward a goal that may take generations and countless atrocities to reach. To the believers in incrementalism, all wars but the current war, were unjust, and all movements toward equality were necessary, except the one happening right now. To those who see incrementalism as the correct path, there is no reason to move forward at an extreme pace. They argue that this is the pace needed to succeed in these conflicts; that change can come “too quickly” and fail with its speed. The necessary social changes will come in time, but not at this present time. We see this attitude throughout the Progressive movement, that we must take time to properly institute the right good actions in a sea of bad ones. But this time sees countless die in unnecessary wars, famines, and other inequalities.

The argument is that, if we were, as a democratic society, to move too quickly, we would fall into a new form of failure instead of fixing the social and economic ailments of the world. However it must be remembered that the democratic state was brought about by bourgeois revolutions, that democracy itself is a bourgeois circus designed to provide the illusion of political power to the working class, and that the function of this system is one that would see the bourgeois masters of the world retain their power, and worse, give them time to adjust their control of the world to accommodate the changes of history and co-opt them into their own perverted sense of progress. One simply needs to look at the constant backsliding of liberal sentiment to ravenous, bloodthirsty militarism and authoritarianism when this slow progress is challenged by others who wish to address society’s ills at a more direct pace.

The ideology that presents itself in the liberal mindset is that of blind faith in the goodness of all who will interact with them on the political field and the correctness of the system itself. This is why they are so slow to change in response to developments in history and society: to truly embrace change requires radical self-reflection and recognition of failure. While the liberal is somewhat good at reflecting on their past, they do not reflect on the present state, and certainly do not see it as broken as it truly is. In fact, the present state is, to the liberal, the closest thing to the correct position possible, and to want to push beyond the bounds of current political discourse is to engage in dangerous and unserious radicalism. Liberal theology claims to hold dogmatic belief in the scientific, or so they say. The dogma of the liberal is rife with supposed “facts” that, when challenged, are met with accusations of misinformation and unscientific viewpoints. That, however, allows for that same “misinformation” to breed, as the liberal will try to engage anyone on the political field with the same level of rigor with which they face someone who still believes in a Geocentric view of the heavens above. They argue against the fascist, whom they share many similarities with, in good faith, but this is where their mistakes lie. The fascist doesn’t argue in anything resembling good faith, they do not seek debate as a means of finding truth, they instead use debate as theater, a tool to sharpen their rhetoric and recruit from the uninformed masses.

Fascism itself breeds from the ability to lie. When they misconstrue facts and espouse blatantly contradictory beliefs, they are not acting in good faith, and are most certainly not “confused” in that belief. They lie as often as they breathe, and their ideology uses said lies the same way a human uses their breath. When they can lie to the unsuspecting liberal, the liberal takes their debate as a good faith argument, and attempts to debunk it through polite discourse, giving the fascist credibility equal to their own. Many liberals are simply misinformed and do not understand the trap of debating fascists in good faith debate. This thinking is used against the liberal, who, instead of challenging fascism, finds themselves assisting in its propagation. By even giving the fascist the space to speak, they are exposing the audience to these harmful ideas, giving them credibility, and providing opportunities for some to be swayed by them to agree. It is easy for the uninformed to believe that their nation is the best, or that their identity is in crisis, and that the only way to fix this is the supremacy of what they believe is normal to them.

But Fascism is not the only challenger to liberalism. There is another position, one made stronger by its meaningful challenge to the crises and contradictions of liberalism. One that routinely utilizes self-criticism and reflection to refine its position to actually be correct and authentic to the worker’s plight. That position is that of the Communist. The Communist learns from the past, both their own and others; their understanding of the world is fueled by the material realities around them. There is not a single believer in the true movement that would argue that we are living in the best possible world, or that we must adjust our actions in the name of a specialized form of supremacy to fix the mess of society. However, there is a price to the communist viewpoint, and that is the maximalist approach. The maximalist approach is deceptively simple. It states that we must overthrow all that is bad now to instate the good-and all means all. While such a comprehensive reordering of society would take time, it is by no means the same approach as the lethargic crawl of progressive liberalism. Instead of the idea that we must make small, incremental changes to society that would, at some unspecified point in the future result in the perfect form, it calls for the maximum effort to be put forward to destroy inequality where it begins, in economics, and in a broader sense, society. This approach states that we must institute the broadest measures possible to stop the pain and suffering in this world for all humans, in every sphere.

It makes little sense to the communist that we must focus on small changes to solve wide problems. The constant, minute tweaking of society does little but give the time for the adversaries of historical progress, those forces of the bourgeoisie, to counteract or stop the progress in its tracks. This is why the vast majority of the bourgeois wish to see change happen slowly. They desire the time to take these changes and transform them into something beneficial to their own aims, something tamed of any wild ideas of equality and social progress. Perhaps that was their plan all along, those naughty boys, the bourgeoisie. The co-opting of progressive social movements is the bread and butter of the bourgeois masters. Take, for example, the concept of “Rainbow Capitalism”, or the support for the LGBTQ community by big business in the Western world. This practice is predatory to say the least. One simply has to look at these same businesses in the rest of the world, where the LGBTQ community is not accepted, and their utter silence. If these businesses truly supported this community, would they not signal it where it is needed most? Of course not-their proclaimed support of LGBTQ people is only insofar as they become and remain customers. We see, too, in the movements for equality for African Americans. Both the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter movements were gradually shorn of radical elements which were aligned with communist politics and advocated for more effective changes to the issues faced by the African American community, even as more moderate, incremental positions found nominal acceptance within the mainstream of bourgeois politics. Time and again, the maximalism of historically progressive social movements has been neutered by engagement with the reformism of bourgeois democracy-this is what gives the dictatorship of the bourgeois its strength to weather crises in the way dictatorships of the aristocracy did not.

Again, this is why the time for these changes must be now, and not at some unclear point in the future. Capitalism is the system of contradiction, where in one place and time you can support the progress of society, and simultaneously, you can deride it, or worse, sit idly by and watch it happen. To this end, it only makes sense that communism is the only way forward, and to enact communism, the entire system of capitalism must come to an end, and it must end now, with no concessions and no-half measures to blunt the force of historical progress. To wait at all is to allow the Capitalist system the ability to pervert the changes made to its own profit. Worse, it allows the Capitalist system the opportunity to counteract all progress in a way that subverts it and reinforces Capitalism itself.

We must unite as a global community against this perpetual waiting game. Instead of allowing Capitalism the time and space to take over our movements, we should instead take the fight to the root cause of the suffering and inequality of the world, Capitalism itself. The businesses of the world do not wish to see you prosper, if they did, they would not profit off of your desperation for resources. Why, might I ask, is water a commodity to be bought and sold, when without it, anyone would surely die a painful death? Instead, the very act of commodification should be attacked with full force. The profiting off of our fellow man, whether in the realm of food, water, housing, or other, only causes pain to those who would need these resources the most. We as a global people are responsible for one another, and to support Capitalism, this responsibility is shirked in the name of a paltry gain, a one-over on your fellow man.

I must return to the maximalist agenda, as it is the only way for socialism, and in due time, communism to take hold. We must enact as much societal change as possible at the current time to save the world from the vile grip of Capitalism. While the changes necessary will indeed take time to properly take hold, that does not mean we must wait until they, the capitalists, are “ready” for them. This readiness is only a ploy, an obscuring of their actual motives. They want this progress to be controlled by them and them alone, and will use the lie of society “not being ready” to subdue revolutionary spirit. It is time to shed off this system of slow, meaningless change. We are not approaching a time where Capitalism will acquiesce itself to the people, we are approaching an all consuming behemoth that will destroy us all if we do not act now.