PROGRAM OF RHODE ISLAND DSA
What We Fight For
1. We fight for socialism.
Workers in Rhode Island and worldwide are denied the necessities for a dignified life. They work long hours under grueling conditions for despotic bosses. They are forced to accept medical debt, exorbitant rent, and environmental devastation in the name of profit.
In a true democracy, the countless people who want control over their workplace and need healthcare, housing, education, and a habitable Earth could use society’s wealth to meet these needs. However, the world is increasingly dividing into two opposing groups. There is the vast majority: the people of every race, gender, and nationality who must work to survive. On the other side, there is the ruling class: the capitalists who use the labor of others to create profits for themselves and use these profits to wield political power.
The dominance of capitalists and the suffering of the working class are not coincidences; they are necessary for capitalism’s existence. Consequently, we do not merely fight for a better compromise between capitalists and workers. We fight to ensure that society is organized according to the will of the majority: the collective ownership and democratic control of natural resources, technology, and businesses by the workers themselves. This goal – that is, a socialist society – can only be reached if the working class takes political power for itself. In other words, it requires a revolution. All people who make their living working for a wage have an interest in fighting for this revolution. Without their labor, capitalism does not exist; without their consent, it cannot continue.
Rhode Island DSA’s purpose is to unite workers in Rhode Island with workers across the world in a movement for socialism: government by and for the working class.
2. We fight for an independent, working-class, socialist party.
We must establish a party for workers to preserve the political independence of our class, assess the strength of our movement, and develop a strategy to protect our interests and win power. Our vision of a socialist party is very different from the parties of the ruling class:
The party’s makeup is reflective of the composition of the working class, including race, nationality, gender, and ethnicity.
Members democratically decide party direction and policy.
Members fund the party through dues, rather than corporate donations.
Members democratically elect leadership, which is bound to carry out the membership’s decisions.
Party politicians do not compromise the interests of workers, but use their campaigns to unmask the capitalist system, win transitional concessions, and bring working people into a mass movement.
The party recognizes that elections are just one method of agitation and organization. It must also organize people in their workplaces and communities.
3. We fight for a militant, democratic labor movement.
Without the labor of their employees, capitalists cannot turn a profit. Because of this, workers have enormous power when they strike. When workers unite across industries, they can win major political demands by bringing the economy to a halt. Therefore, an effective socialist party must have a strong base in the labor unions, especially within the industries essential to production and distribution. We unconditionally support all efforts by workers to unionize. Further, we believe that unions must be militant in their commitment to openly fighting exploitation by their bosses. We fight for unions in which:
Members democratically control contract negotiations, strikes, and union political activities.
Members democratically elect all union officers.
Union leadership fights unconditionally for the interests of its workers and rejects compromises in the name of bosses’ profits.
The union fights for the working class as a whole by taking on broader demands such as universal healthcare and immigrant rights.
The union is politically independent of the capitalist parties rather than subservient to them.
Our Program
1. We demand freedoms for workers within and beyond the workplace.
In the struggle between workers and capitalists, the capitalist class fights to increase its profits by extending hours and productivity while reducing wages, benefits, and working-class challenges to its power. When workers unite to oppose their immiseration and to advance their material interests, capitalists use all means in their efforts to crush them. We seek dignity and freedom for all workers. We demand:
Wages adjusted to inflation and the cost of living. Workers should not have to shoulder an implicit pay cut because of rising costs.
A nationwide jobs guarantee and a living wage for all.
Free, publicly provided child- and elder-care.
Guaranteed parental leave with full pay, available to workers regardless of gender.
A guaranteed right for workers to organize a union with the right to strike for any reason, at any time.
Democratically run workplaces, controlled by workers.
Protection of freedom of speech and association on the job.
2. We demand the freedom of oppressed peoples in the United States.
We stand in solidarity with all oppressed groups and their struggles for democratic self-determination, including Native Americans, Black people, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ people. We reject any attempt to divide the working class, instead affirming that an injury to any worker is an injury to all. We demand:
The abolition of ICE.
Full citizenship for all undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S.
Access to public services for immigrants, with resources available in an individual’s primary language.
An end to the corrupt, racist, anti-worker criminal justice system, and punishment for the police officers it has protected.
3. We demand the freedom of oppressed peoples worldwide.
The freedom of workers in the United States is impossible without the freedom of workers worldwide. A key obstacle to global solidarity and self-determination is U.S. imperialism, the single most brutal engine of international oppression. Our country’s imperialist actions send U.S. workers abroad to kill, maim, displace, and immiserate the poor of other countries. When we do not send troops, we send billions of dollars in weapons or enact crushing sanctions to create suffering in their place. The result of these hostile actions is inevitable: misery for the international working class, and profit and prestige for the imperialist ruling class. We demand:
No support for any imperialist military action by the United States or any of its proxies.
No money or arms to Israel, and an immediate end to the genocide in Palestine.
Self-determination for U.S. territories.
An end to U.S. sanctions that collectively punish the citizens of other countries.
Trade deals that protect wages for all workers internationally.
4. We demand free, socialized housing.
We seek to end the profit-driven housing system, where landlords, developers, and investors charge workers who need secure shelter exorbitant rents to maximize profit. Workers are forced to accept expensive, low-quality housing because their alternative is living on the street. We want socialized housing: housing owned by the state and democratically controlled by residents. We demand:
High-quality socialized housing for all.
Rent control.
Rent stabilization.
5. We demand free, socialized healthcare.
The current U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profit over people. It denies people access to care, saddles them with medical debt, and creates understaffed medical workplaces that exploit and underpay their workers. Only a nationwide healthcare system owned by the people can ensure the humane organization and distribution of healthcare. We demand:
Nationwide universal socialized healthcare that is free at the point of access.
Safe, democratically run workplaces, controlled by healthcare workers.
Forgiveness of all existing medical debt.
Reproductive freedom for women, including a guaranteed right to abortion.
6. We demand green, worker-controlled energy and infrastructure.
The incredible technological progress of the last two centuries has produced both marvels and grave threats to humanity’s continued existence, most notably the ongoing global climate catastrophe. Only under socialism will we be able to maintain and deepen technological developments, while abolishing the short-sighted pursuit of profit that corrupts them. Socialists do not fight to turn the clock back on energy production or infrastructure, but to embrace them, and turn them toward the interests of humanity. To that end, we demand:
Publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities.
State-subsidized, well-paying jobs in democratic workplaces for all workers constructing green energy infrastructure.
Construction of new renewable energy infrastructure, including wind and solar, and a prohibition on new fossil fuel infrastructure.
Radically improved and expanded public transportation, under the ownership and control of workers.
Low-cost and on-time train and bus routes.
Expansion of RIPTA service to cover all of Rhode Island.
7. We demand comprehensive, high-quality public education.
In a healthy democracy, all citizens have access to quality education free of charge. Free public education is necessary to promote democracy, heighten class consciousness, and ensure an educated populace. Currently, the U.S. education system prepares most students for little more than subservience in their future workplace. We recognize the racial and class-based inequities perpetuated by student loan debt, private schools, and the gaps in quality between school districts. We demand:
High-quality free public education for all from pre-K to college.
The abolition of private and charter schools.
Democratic workplaces and higher wages for teachers.
Forgiveness of all existing student debt.