As the centre-left and the right contend for parliamentary power in the 2026 general election, people living in New Zealand, especially the working class, are broadly dissatisfied. Despite this, revolution is not on the minds of the majority. New Zealand capitalism recently has been, by capitalist standards, fairly stable, with no major crises or upheavals. Class struggle is low. The unions are weak, highly cautious, and are overly influenced by the right-wing Labour Party. Internationally, and increasingly at home, the far right explains the deprivations of capitalism, with racism, bigotry, anti-migration, and even anti-socialist rhetoric. In doing so, they turn ordinary people against each other, annihilating solidarity and making capitalist exploitation easier.
The socialist left, tiny and fragmented, is in no position to get our message out, let alone offer a serious political alternative. In this climate, it should come as no surprise that many do not feel that a fundamentally better world is possible. Fewer still have an understanding of socialism and believe revolution is necessary or even on the table.
Capitalism is Unsustainable
Capitalism is the system which fundamentally governs every country across the globe. It is a system of class domination and rule. A system where a tiny minority, the capitalists, get rich through owning and controlling production and property. They own large businesses, supermarkets, mines, factories, offices, and pay workers far less than the value they themselves generate. Then there are capitalists in non-productive markets, such as landlords, who hoard and restrict access to housing and land, extorting rent. Both sustain their class position through the exploitation of workers.
The core logic of capitalism, competition, and wealth accumulation, drives capitalists to increase exploitation of people and the planet. Capitalists are driven to acquire materials as cheaply as possible and to expand their operations as far as possible, regardless of environmental and social impact. They are driven to push down wages and worsen working conditions. A capitalist who does not do this risks being driven off the market and having their privileged class position threatened. The same applies to capitalist states, which compete on the global stage to create the best conditions for their respective capitalists, generating, among other horrors, constant war and waste.
We are seeing much of this play out in New Zealand today. The fast-track and oil exploration legislation is set to devastate the environment in service of capitalist interests. Attacks on unions, declining real wages, and the housing crisis make the lives of everyday workers worse, to fund tax cuts for landlords, military spending, and a culture war perpetuated by the rich and powerful.
Socialism is the Alternative
It is usually not difficult to convince ordinary people that capitalism is bad. That said, many believe there is no alternative. When the idea of socialism is raised, people think of many different things, representing how terribly the idea has been muddied and bastardised. People often think of the monstrous Stalinist bureaucracies or the weak-willed tinkering of parties like Labour or the Greens. This has nothing to do with the socialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and Luxemburg – the socialism of workers’ self-emancipation.
Workers make up a majority of the population in developed capitalist countries. Workers do all the necessary work in society but are compelled through the threat of poverty to sell their labour. Socialism is the idea that the capitalists should be toppled from their parasitic position, and economic and political life should no longer be a dictatorship of the bosses, but run democratically, collectively, and collaboratively by the working class and the oppressed.
Socialists are for the abolition of private property used to generate profit. We are for an end to the capitalist class and full control over the economy and workplaces for workers themselves. We are for getting rid of capitalist “democracy” where donors and lobbyists hold disproportionate power and politicians are unaccountable for years on end. We are for workers’ democracy where elected delegates are not highly privileged and are subject to a right of recall if they do not act in the interests of those they represent.
We Need Revolution
Revolution is needed in New Zealand (and globally) to get rid of capitalism and build a socialist Aotearoa.
We cannot elect our way to a gradual socialism. Parliament and the capitalist state are not set up to be taken over and used by the working class. To even attain parliamentary power, a rising reformist socialist party would have to overcome the full might of organised capitalists on their own playing ground. They would face reaction far exceeding that of when Labour or the Greens get a bit too left-wing. Absurd levels of donations would flow to the parties of the right, and even the centre-left, from business, corporations, and lobby groups representing capitalists.
If a reformist socialist party does attain parliamentary power, it finds itself highly limited in what it can do. When it reforms too strongly, capitalists, unwilling to simply allow their privilege to be eroded, will withdraw investment and use their dominant economic position to destabilise the economy. Further, elements and tools of the ruling class embedded in the capitalist state such as police, executives, judges, and the governor-general, are likely to impede, sabotage, and rebel. In Australia in 1975, a Labor government seen as not doing enough for business interests was sacked by the governor-general in collusion with higher-ups in the judiciary. A similar event happened in 1932 when the Labor New South Wales government leader was sacked by the state governor as part of a massive campaign by the ruling class. Events like this demonstrate capitalism’s ability to crush reforms much more mild than what would be needed to “reform our way to socialism.”
We need a working-class revolution. We need to be organised in a democratic mass revolutionary socialist party with roots in every area of political struggle (trade unions, social movements, and political campaigns). Only through these means can the rotten institutions of capitalism be smashed, and the violent reaction of the ruling class defeated. This revolutionary process is also where a new workers’ democracy takes shape and people en masse develop the experience needed to govern a new socialist society.
Revolution is Possible
Revolutionary moments in society are not infrequent – in fact, capitalism generates them. Periods of crisis and deep dissatisfaction with the system happen regularly, and often huge resistance movements with revolutionary potential emerge. Capitalism gets worse and worse, and its crises more severe. What differentiates those pre-revolutionary or revolutionary moments that sputter out, and those that see success, is organisation.
We need a mass party with clear revolutionary socialist politics and a thriving internal democracy. A party devoted to pushing the class struggle forward until the working class and the oppressed have won. A party of many thousands of committed members and activists that can act as the memory of the class, retaining lessons from victories and defeats. A party that can in turn offer serious political leadership and cohere working-class action throughout the country. Without such an organisation, the workers’ movement and any future rupture will be fatally vulnerable to the reaction of the ruling class. The capitalist class is organised in their shared interest of keeping us low and exploited. To overcome that, we must be organised in the interests of all people and the planet.
To conclude, it is clear that capitalism must go, and that there is a just, egalitarian, and realistic alternative: socialism. To get there, we need a revolution, which becomes possible in moments of crisis generated by capitalism. We can only win through a well-organised workers’ movement and a mass socialist party. No such party currently exists in New Zealand – not even close. This is the task of the ISO, to lay the foundations for such a party to be built. We organise and train dozens of workers and students to win people to the ideas of socialism and fight on the front lines of the struggle against the ruling class.
Presently, we are swimming against the stream, but history shows it will not always be this way. Now we grow in our ones and twos, but there will be moments where far more is possible. How we take advantage of those moments will be determined by what we can build in the here-and-now, through the diligent work of organised socialists. If you are reading this and are sick of the horrors of capitalism and want to be part of organising against it and building for a better world, get involved with the ISO.
Banner Image: Silhouette of Revolutionaries. Credit: Author – Clker-Free-Vector-Images – pixabay.com Free Use under Pixabay Content Licence
