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Solidarity Congress Broadening - Uniting Deepening Broadening

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BROADEN I NG UN I T ING DEEPENING SOLIDARITY CONGRESS BROADENING - UNITING DEEPENING BROADENING PTB CONGRESS SOLIDARITY PTB Les gens d’abord, pas le profit Les gens d’abord, pas le profit BROADENING UNITING DEEPENING SOLIDARITY CONGRESS 2015 Creation: www.commsa.be Layout: EPO Printed by EPO Printing Company Lange Pastoorstraat 25-27 2600 Antwerp Belgium Tel. 32 (0) 3239 61 29 © PTB-PVDA-Publishers Bd M. Lemonnier 171 1000 Brussels Belgium Tel.: 32 (0) 2 504 01 10 Fax: 32 (0) 2 504 01 41 Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Website: pvda.be; ptb.be June 13, 2015 PVDA BROADENINGEerst de mensen, niet de winst UNITING ROOD GROEN PMS 032 PMS 361 CMYK 0/90/86/0 CMYK 80/0/100/0 DEEPENINGRGB 229/53/44 RGB 13/177/75 SOLIDARITYRAL 3024 CONGRESSRAL 6018 2015 CONTENTS BROADENING - UNITING - DEEPENING 10 THREE KEY WORDS 11 OFTEN AGAINST THE TIDE, ALWAYS GENEROUSLY ON THE LEFT 12 1. TIMES ARE CHANGING 15 INTRODUCTION 17 1. A SOCIAL RESPONSE TO A PROFOUND ECONOMIC CRISIS 19 1.1. Illusion bubbles are bursting 19 1.2. Excess supply stumbles on a lack of demand 22 1.3. Treating the disease with medieval bloodletting 23 1.4. What lies ahead? 27 1.5. The crisis and the European Union 29 1.6. Social investment programmes and deep society change 33 2. A PROACTIVE PEACE POLICY AGAINST GROWING WAR THREATS 35 2.1. A new balance of power 35 2.2. The particular position of China as a rising power 37 2.3. Emerging countries challenge the hegemony of the United States 40 2.4. Facts and fiction about the US decline 42 2.5. Increasing the risk of war 44 2.6. A proactive peace policy 47 3. THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS 49 3.1. Social and democratic rights as the achievements of collective struggle 49 3.2. Union-busting 51 3.3. Class justice 53 3.4. Big Brother against the right to privacy 54 3.5. A war against international law and against law itself 57 3.6. Divide and conquer: discrimination, racism and the far right 59 3.7. Democratic rights as a springboard 62 4. CHANGE NOW, BEFORE THE CLIMATE CHANGES EVERYTHING 64 4.1. The facts are indisputable 65 4.2. The task is clear 66 4.3. Human society is facing important decisions 68 4.4. The social and ecological struggles are joining together 71 2. POSITIVE AMBITIONS 75 1. THE STRATEGY OF CHANGE 77 1.1. A Party of the Working Class 77 1.2. Party of Youth 82 1.3. A Party of Progressive Convergence 91 1.4. A broadly defined cultural struggle 93 1.5. The social struggle and people’s representatives 99 2. AMBITION VERSUS ROUTINE 105 2.1. Growing Pains 105 2.2. Thinking strategically 108 2.3. A strong backbone 111 2.4. Women 113 2.5. The Red Devils of politics: a bilingual and national team 119 2.6. Educating to understand and act in an informed way 122 3. A PARTY LIKE NO OTHER 127 3.1. A party of active members 127 3.2. A communist party of our time 133 3.3. A rich social history 136 3. SOCIALISM 2.0 157 1. PARADIGM CHANGE: THE WORLD ON A HUMAN SCALE 159 2. A BETTER WORLD IS POSSIBLE AND NECESSARY 163 2.1. Living together cannot happen alone 163 2.2. The production base of society 164 2.3. Human action is the driving force of history 166 3. SOCIALIZATION OF THE ECONOMIC LEVERS 168 3.1. Key sectors in the hands of the community 168 3.2. Public sectors to ensure fundamental rights 170 3.3. Common heritage, knowledge and development 171 4. PLANNED DEVELOPMENT 174 4.1. Human needs as the driving force of the economy 174 4.2. Planning a collective household 174 4.3. Freeing planning from the yoke of private ownership and profit 176 4.4. An efficient and participatory planning 177 4.5. Innovation, creativity and diversity 178 4.6. The technological basis for planning 181 5. A SUSTAINABLE MODEL OF SOCIETY 183 5.1. Labour and nature: the two sources of wealth 183 5.2. A different kind of growth 185 5.3. A sustainable economy 188 6. ACTIVE PARTICIPATION IN GOVERNMENT 190 6.1. People Power 190 6.2. Reduction of working hours as a prerequisite for broader development 191 6.3. A rich democratic life 192 6.4. Direct and representative democracy 193 6.5. Separation of powers 195 6.6. A constitutional state 198 7. FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS 199 7.1. Three generations of human rights 199 7.2. Fundamental rights and freedoms 201 8. INTERNATIONALISM, SOLIDARITY AND PEACE 209 8.1. Internationalism 209 8.2. A policy of international solidarity and peace 210 9. A RICH CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT 212 9.1. Solidarity is a fundamental pillar of human development 212 9.2. A broad process of cultural struggle and new ideas 213 9.3. An innovative and progressive culture 215 10. SOCIALISM 2.0 IS JUST A START, ON A NEW BASIS 219 ANNEX THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF BELGIAN SOCIETY 221 1. WHY ANALYSE THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY? 223 2. THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF OUR COUNTRY 224 2.1. General 224 2.2. Classes in society 225 2.3. The establishment 226 2.4. The working class 228 3. THE WORKING CLASS AND ITS ALLIES 234 3.1. A global vision of the working class 234 3.2. The working class and its allies in the independent middle class 235 3.3. Special allies: young people, students, intellectuals and artists 237 BROADENING UNITING DEEPENING BROADENING - UNITING - DEEPENING* Today, as part of our Solidarity Congress, you have elected a new National Council. It includes many young comrades who want to continue advanc- ing the party’s fortunes in our country’s political environment. A new team will be putting in practice the orientations chosen during this Soli- darity Congress. This process is a hallmark of our party. We first discussed content. Where do we wish to go? What are our weaknesses? What are our strengths? Then, we made use of this Congress to set, together, an action course. Finally, we elected a team that will implement these ori- entations. This substantive work was quite intense: a very rich democratic process, which took considerable time, lasting nearly a year. First, the departments and grassroots groups of the party elected 556 delegates to this Congress, 63 percent of them Dutch-speaking and 37 percent French-speaking. Each delegate received drafts of our three basic Congress texts, drawn up a year ago and, together, they suggested no less than 921 pages of amend- ments. It was quite a feat to process these thoroughly and to narrow down the key points to debate. Those key issues were submitted a first time to 37 commissions meeting throughout Belgium. 415 delegates took part in these discussions and voted in the commission hearings. The results of this process came back to the Congress Bureau, so that the drafts could be enriched and thoroughly revised, based on these amendments, debates and votes. All delegates received a second draft of the papers, which were finally presented to the two plenary sessions of the Congress. These ses- sions included ultimate debates and then votes on the texts presented here today. This intense democratic process marks our congress papers as a collective work that reflects the richness of our activity at the grassroots level and the quality of our membership. * Closing speech by Peter Mertens at the second plenary session of the Solidarity Congress. 10 SOLIDARITY CONGRESS 2015 Three key words Broadening - uniting – deepening are the three key words of this Con- gress. They run through the different chapters of this document. In the first part, we examine our current era and the political juncture. Under the heading Times are changing, we explore five specific themes: social progress, democracy, culture, ecology and peace. Our party is best known today for its interventions on socioeconomic issues. In impover- ished neighbourhoods, in workplaces, in social struggles and within our study department, we have built a strong reputation in this field. Nat- urally, we want to preserve these assets. Yet, broadening means that in the coming years, we also wish to affirm a stronger profile on other is- sues. At this congress, we paid considerable attention to the environment because in our view, the environment is a crucial social issue that is too important to be left to market forces. We want to send out a clear signal that our social and ecological struggles must go hand in hand, based on a same social vision of emancipation. We have symbolized this focus in our new logo, by combining a green arrow with our basic red design. We also seek to be more proactive in defending democratic rights, in fields such as trade union rights or the protection of privacy or the struggle against racism. A dynamic peace policy is also an axis that we intend to develop in the coming years. Broadening means tackling more issues than we do today. Uniting means our wish to link these different themes, making them a joint struggle against the profit system. Deepening means look- ing further, opening windows to the world, and bringing social progress, democracy, culture, ecology and peace into the public debate. In the second part of our Solidarity Congress, we define guidelines for the coming years. Being optimistic, we advocate, with the title Positive ambitions, heady projects, out-of-the-box thinking and a lot more creativ- ity.
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