Workers Demand the World: A Revolutionary Program for DSA
EL Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1920
Authors: Connell H (River Valley), Duncan H (Seattle), Parker M (River Valley), Tzipora S (Pittsburgh)
Rationale:
The Trump administration is waging war on the working class, attacking peoples’ livelihoods, education, safety, ability to unionize, and political rights. The Democratic Party is either rolling over or enabling fascism. The only way out is an oppositional mass movement that tells the truth about Trump and the rotten constitutional order that enables minoritarian capitalist rule over the working class. We need both a clear message about what it will take to end far right terror and a unifying base for action across the organization.
Therefore be it resolved,
DSA’s orientation to the Trump administration is to oppose attacks on our political rights and freedoms, without defending the existing constitutional order that divides and suppresses the working class. We do not live in a democracy, but we cannot afford to lose what little we have.
We will build a united front among the working class for the defense of political freedom from fascism. We will take common action with liberal activists when they stand against fascism, and maintain our independent messaging when they stand for the existing constitutional order.
We will organize the working class into a mass vanguard against the constitutional order and for genuine democracy. We will participate in the struggles against fascism and oppression where they appear, while persuading people that the only path to end this in a lasting way is to win the battle for democracy.
Therefore be it further resolved,
The following is adopted as the Workers Demand the World program, and replaces both the 2024 Workers Deserve More program and the platform adopted at the 2021 DSA convention as DSA’s unifying goals.
Workers Demand the World: A Revolutionary Program for DSA
Capitalism is a failed system. The capitalist class has unleashed misery on the workers of the world, turning to environmental devastation, militarized policing and mass incarceration, war and genocide, all in the pursuit of profits. The Democratic Party answers to its elite donor class, and will never act as an effective political counter to the nationalist far right. Only a party that fights for working people can win the battle against fascism. Without a working-class alternative, capitalists, Democrats, and Republicans will continue to perpetuate violence and injustice at home and abroad.
DSA stands in opposition to the Constitution, openly indicting it as antidemocratic and oppressive, and will lead the struggle for a democratic republic, a genuine democracy where the working class can rule. We declare that to be a socialist is to fight for an expansive working-class democracy in which the state and society are democratically managed by the majority. In the US, this means demanding a new constitution.
DSA’s mission is to unite workers into a powerful political movement to win the battle for democracy and change the world. We stand against the capitalist class and the politicians of both major parties that serve their interests at the expense of the rest of us. Our goal is to put workers in charge of the government through a new democratic constitution which will establish democratic rights for all, allow a good life for all people, and end U.S. imperialism. DSA’s program is a set of radical democratic and economic demands aimed at removing whatever prevents the working class from ruling and, if enacted together, will put society on the path of a socialist transition out of capitalism. Our long term goal after achieving this: a world free of the market, borders, classes, and all other oppressive structures that exist under capitalism—in a word, communism.
What We Fight For:
Winning the Battle for Democracy
Universal, equal, and direct suffrage for every citizen 16 years of age or older. Universal citizenship for long term residents within the boundaries of the state.
The right to organize labor unions, collectively bargain in the workplace, and strike.
The right to move freely within and without the borders of the state.
Freedom of association and assembly and unrestricted rights of free speech and publication. Associations may participate in the political system as parties on the condition that they accept the laws of the new revolutionary order as binding.
Abolition of the Presidency and the Electoral College, to be replaced by an Executive Council elected and overseen by Congress; abolition of the Senate. All power to be vested in the people’s House of Representatives and its number of members uncapped.
Governing supremacy of legislatures at all levels of government, to be elected under a nationwide electoral standard with proportional representation. Elections to be entirely publicly funded. Elected delegates to be subject to recall and paid the wage of the average skilled worker.
The right to freedom of information. Release state secrets and the open and transparent operation of government. Elimination of advertising in news media. Media to be publicly funded and democratically accessible. Abolition of copyright laws. The right of the public to appropriate intellectual property.
Abolition of the rights and powers reserved to States; formation of regional and municipal governments to be a guaranteed right for all peoples within the boundaries of the state.
Self-determination for all nations within the boundaries of the state, including but not limited to the right of separation, the right of return for Indigenous nations, and the right to choose to participate in the political system of the republic on a plurinational basis. The right of all peoples to receive services of the state in their preferred language. Enforcement of Indigenous treaties following the democratic will of Indigenous nations, including their right to reclaim land under sovereign control.
The right to expropriate property for the public good without compensation for the private owner, and the right to collective, democratic ownership and management of all public goods.
The right of the people to call a constituent assembly to reform the constitution of the republic elected by the people through their right to universal, equal, and direct suffrage.
Abolition of the police, professional military, special forces, and the security state. Establishment of a people's militia, with service members retaining the same democratic and constitutional rights offered to citizens. Universal service and training. Reorientation towards public infrastructure projects, disaster relief, and safety. The right of conscientious objectors to alternative service options.
The right to transformative justice and rehabilitation. Full constitutional rights retained for persons under trial and rehabilitation. Freedom for all incarcerated people, their enfranchisement as citizens, and the closure of prisons.
Elimination of judicial review. Appointment of all judges by the appropriate legislatures, except local judges, who are to be elected directly by the people.
Replacement of common law with an easily understandable code of laws. Elimination of private legal counsel for hire, to be replaced with public legal counsel with equalized pay.
An Economy for the Working Class
Provision of quality housing, medical care, food and water, family care, and other fundamental necessities of life to all residents.
Expropriation, without compensation, of the resources and industries most immediately necessary for the survival of the working class and cohesive functioning of the state, including railways, telecommunications, seaports, airports, energy infrastructure, medical infrastructure, and high finance. Nationalization of land, air, and waterways.
A legal limit of a 32-hour workweek, with compensation for lost overtime and no reduction in overall pay.
Universal access to reproductive and trans healthcare, including contraception, birth control, fertility treatment, hormone-replacement therapy, gender-affirming surgeries and abortion on demand.
End state recognition of the gender binary and nuclear family, protecting the right to form families not based on marriage or blood relation, prohibiting discrimination based on sexuality, gender or age, and affirming the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled to live with safety and dignity and to decide where and with whom they will live.
Universal, public, and mandatory education until the age of majority. Elimination of college tuition and residency fees. Provide ongoing literacy, technical, and vocational training for adults as a publicly accessible service.
A living wage for all workers regardless of age, employment, or status, regularly adjusted to account for changes in purchasing power. No discrimination in pay based on race, gender, or nationality. Elimination of separate tipped wages.
Reparations to formerly oppressed peoples through targeted investment in public infrastructure and commons, and unconditional cash transfers in underdeveloped communities.
Creation of a state fund for public creation of and participation in artistic and cultural works.
Periodic suppression of public and private debts owed by workers.
Democratic control over the home, housing, and the land on which these exist.
Replace all indirect taxes with a single progressive income tax.
Socialized healthcare, free at the point of service. Increase the concentration of health professionals per capita. Free access to treatment and testing for infections like HIV/AIDS and COVID-19.
Working Class Foreign Policy
Withdraw from NATO. Termination of all outstanding military treaties with imperialist states and withdrawal or surrender of all troops stationed abroad. Cessation of all arms transfers to imperialist states and their proxies.
End all current sanctions, asset seizures, and tariffs.
War reparations to nations subjected to US conspiracies and military aggression, and climate reparations to the Third World.
Withdraw from existing trade agreements. New trade arrangements based on equality of labor-time between workers of all nations and guaranteed free passage of essential resources, technologies, and supplies.
Enact emergency measures to curb U.S. industries with high waste in material throughput, emissions, and energy demand. Ensure that goods and waste produced in necessary industries are reused, recycled, refurbished, or otherwise restored to natural earth processes. Subsidize municipal and regional efforts to restore local ecology.
Abolition of the United Nations Security Council. United Nations General Assembly seats to be allocated proportionally to the population of each nation, with the representatives to these seats to be elected through proportional representation. No veto exceptions for any nation in the General Assembly.
Subordination of the World Bank and the IMF to the United Nations. Cancellation of national debts for countries burdened by loans from international capitalist institutions such as the World Bank and IMF.
Provision of unconditional funding by the United Nations for life essentials, climate refugee travel, return of displaced indigenous peoples, preventative vaccine measures, construction of utilities.
Our long term goals:
The framework established by the Constitution, the surrounding legal order, the dominating influence of wealth on political power, and the repressive arm of the state—the police, military, and prisons—constitute the dictatorship of the capitalists, strangling the working class. The working class must lead the battle to sweep away this political order and establish a truly democratic republic, freeing the workers of the world from the chains of American imperialism, and setting the stage for the working class to lead a socialist transformation of our society.
The development of socialism under working class rule will gradually extend democratic planning to the whole economy and end inequality - whether between types of work, racial groups, gender, or other social divisions. This society will combine the common labor of the many with a democracy that empowers and involves all, struggling day by day for a life that enables the flourishing of the collective, rather than their oppression for a powerful few. Through this process, the special role of the state standing above society withers away and, as the revolution expands internationally, national divisions and inequalities between peoples will be eliminated.
