A stream of recent events suggests a link between economic crisis and social upheavals; following the 2008 financial crisis, we observed the 2011 Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement, the 2012 student strikes here in Quebec, and numerous other reactionary mass movements. Exactly 150 years ago, Karl Marx, in his magnum opus Das Kapital, developed a systematic analysis of the capitalist system and concluded that capitalism inevitably tends toward economic crisis. Following the revolutionary movements of his time, such as the 1848 revolutions in Europe and the formation of the Paris Commune in 1871, he also understood that economic crisis tends to be coupled with social and political disruption.

We all need jobs to pay back these debts, yet it is becoming more and more difficult to find employment.

Today, in a period of relative economic prosperity we observe some of the worst social crises in history. The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) states that, as of June 2017, 65.6 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of conflict or persecution in their countries; this is the largest number of displaced people in history, surpassing even World War 2. This refugee crisis will be further aggravated by climate change; even if we manage to maintain temperatures below the target set at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, which advises for a maximum increase of two degrees Fahrenheit, experts anticipate that there will be tens of millions of new refugees. However, this target is optimistic and extremely unlikely: four or five degrees of warming by 2100 is what we are on track for based on current emission rates. This will cause unprecedented disaster; New York Magazine writer David Wallace-Wells explains that a five-degree increase in global temperature will be accompanied with a roughly 50 per cent decrease in global food production, and, according to a NASA study, the worst droughts in over a thousand years.

As the economy comes closer to the end of this growth-cycle, the refugee crisis worsens, and climate change develops into an unprecedented threat, a billionaire reality TV show star sits in the oval office. Of all the things on the agenda for the future, stability is not one of them. We have to ask ourselves, will a few bold reforms be enough to combat these crises? Are well-intended politicians and corporate charity initiatives the answers to these horrors? Regardless, we can be certain that, if drastic change is not implemented, the rich will still have food on their tables and the world’s poor will pay the ultimate price for a crisis that they did not create.

Today, in a period of relative economic prosperity we observe some of the worst social crises in history.

The question of ending the inequalities of the international capitalist system is not a new one. Marxism advocates for a socialist organization of society – that is, a planned economic system in which the higher levels of economy are democratically owned and controlled by the working class as a whole instead of by private individuals. Marxists believe that the only way to consolidate socialism is through revolution, and thus the forced expropriation of the economy into a non-hierarchical system. This does not seem to be that farfetched. Can we really expect Exxon-Mobil to willingly participate in the struggle against climate change when its entire basis of profit is its oil sales? Can we anticipate that military companies such as Lockheed-Martin will support peacekeeping efforts when their business is based on selling weapons to belligerent nations? Not to mention, we certainly cannot expect private health insurance companies to support the struggle for free universal healthcare. In fact, a single-payer healthcare bill in California was recently shelved by the Democratic Party leadership despite the support it received by a majority of Californians.

The necessity of preparing for this crucial transition has been thought out by past revolutionaries. Marx had recognized that a revolution is a mass movement, and that, if the movement is to win, it must be guided by a political organization with a reasonable understanding of how it can progress; this particular political organization is called the revolutionary party. His first attempt at constructing such an organization was in 1848, when he and Engels drafted the “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” better known as the “Communist Manifesto.”

Of all the things on the agenda for the future, stability is not one of them.

Less than a century later, Vladimir Lenin’s conception of how to organize this revolutionary party would become one of his most valuable contributions to Marxist theory and practice. He focused on the need for Marxists to fight against all forms of oppression and unite all layers of the oppressed, not just workers. In his 1902 pamphlet, What is to be Done?, Lenin states: “Working class consciousness cannot be genuinely political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence and abuse, no matter what class is affected.”

This is the task that the revolutionary party must pursue fervently; it is not enough to just fight for “higher wages.” All forms of resistance against systematic subjugation, whether it occurs through the fight for basic rights for the queer community or racialized people’s struggle against police brutality must be resolutely supported. Throughout each of these movements, Marxists emphasize that only with unity and solidarity across all oppressed layers of society will we achieve victory against that class which profits off of injustice: the capitalists, the ruling class, what Marx calls the bourgeoisie.

Lenin eventually attempted to put Marxist theory into practice. He extended Marx’s analysis to its logical conclusion: a generalized crisis creates an ample opportunity for a revolutionary situation. Once combined with determined leadership, an international revolution against the capitalist system can then be waged to end this exploitative system once and for all. Exactly 100 years ago, this opportunity arose as a direct consequence of World War 1; it was seized by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in the 1917 October Revolution. This led to the establishment of the Soviet Union, which consequently changed the entire course of world history. Unfortunately, the opportunity was not effectively seized by the Marxists in Germany at the same time. There were multiple failed revolutions (in 1918 and 1923), and the people of Germany and Europe paid dearly for these failures with the ensuing rise of Hitler and fascism. Our world is coming to a similar junction, where a similar opportunity for ending oppression has arose, and those of us who seek to change the world are not at all sufficiently prepared.

Can we really expect Exxon-Mobil to willingly participate in the struggle against climate change when its entire basis of profit is its oil sales?

Unfortunately, the legacy of Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union and the bureaucratic degeneration of the revolutionary democracy that had characterized the Russian Revolution has naturally affected people’s conception of Marxism. It is crucial to emphasize that Stalin’s rule in the Soviet Union (and the rule of his successors) had nothing in common with the conception of socialism held by Marx and Lenin. The fundamental difference is that Lenin never envisioned Stalin’s ideal of “Socialism in one Country” as possible. Marx and Lenin understood that the only way for Socialism to succeed would be with international socialist revolution throughout the advanced capitalist world. Not only did the international revolution fail (more specifically those that had started in Germany, Hungary, and Finland), but the Russian economy was only loosely based on a capitalist structure when the socialist revolution occurred. In fact, Russia was a largely feudal country with over 85 per cent of the population being peasants. It is therefore not surprising that socialism failed in Russia – socialism is all about “seizing the means of production,” yet there were barely any means of production to seize in the first place!

I believe that the only way to end oppression is to end the system of capitalism that perpetuates it. At the same time, we cannot neglect any movements against specific forms of injustice. Simply, the task of Marxists is to generalize the fight by widening the scope of the movement into that which addresses all forms of injustice.

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Seeking refuge from the constant stream of advertisements and corporate manipulation, many students naturally went to Activities Night, an event organized by the Student’s Society of McGill University (SSMU) to help students discover the wide variety of student organizations that McGill has to offer. However, as students entered the SSMU ballroom at Activities Night, they were greeted by Tangerine’s huge orange tent, while the student organizations were pushed off to the sides. The bank’s kiosk occupied a significant portion of the floor, which meant that the student clubs assigned to the shared space had to squeeze next to each other, were limited to two people per club, and had to endure (every 5-10 minutes) the cries of the bank’s employees yelling and applauding whenever someone opened the bizarre door to the “free stuff” vault.

Corporatization at McGill is not new. The ritual tents of various banks and phone companies targeting first-year students during orientation week and the very strategically placed ads in bathrooms across campus are just a couple of examples of it. Companies spend a large amount of money in order to be present on campus. McGill is just another marketplace for big companies, and students are just consumers to profit from. As if big companies weren’t already present in every walk of life – do they really need to dominate our campuses as well?

The reason for corporate sponsorships

This creeping corporatization shouldn’t come as a surprise. As a public institution, McGill is dependent on government funding. But due to the Quebec government’s general austerity program, McGill’s budget has been slashed year after year. Just last year, it faced $10 million in cuts. On top of this, an additional $50 million has been cut since 2012. As capitalism sinks deeper into crisis, governments around the world are burdened with huge debts. This results in cuts to spending, the hiking of tuition fees and the corporatization of public institutions. The long-term result of this trend is a shift toward the  privatization of our public institutions.

Of course, McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) has been quite happy to play along. This is not surprising, considering nearly every member of the BoG also serves as a director of one or more major corporations or banks. These people have a direct interest in granting banks and big corporations access to McGill. Actually, the companies they represent and them would profit massively off of the privatization of McGill, and they continue to profit from student indebtedness.

However, while corporatization of the university in general shouldn’t be that surprising, it is surprising and unacceptable that our student union, which supposedly exists to defend and serve our interests as McGill undergraduate students, is bending to corporate pressure.

Earlier this year, a SSMU referendum proposing a $5.50 increase in the base fee, was rejected by a 50.3 per cent majority. As a result, a ‘Club Fund’ fee had to be instated in the same General Assembly – both of these attempts to increase income were a result of $47,000 worth of budget cuts made to funding for student clubs. According to the latest version of its budget, SSMU estimates that it will bring in over $1.746 million in non-allocated student fees for the 2016-2017 year, in part to make up for the projected $130,000 deficit  and to aim for a $100,000 surplus to begin to replenish the Capital Expenditure Reserve Fund (CERF). The CERF is a section of the SSMU budget reserved for investment, renovation, or funding of student initiatives. As a result of the dearth of funding, SSMU has had to turn to corporate sponsorship and infiltration into student union activities, while at the same time fewer resources are being made available to student clubs. The neglect of students has created poor relations between student clubs and the SSMU, and the giant, orange bank tent at Activities Night is only the latest “SSMU fail.”

Repressing student voices on campus

When we were tabling at Activities Night on behalf of Socialist Fightback, Tangerine employees confronting us over complaints of disruption claimed to simply be a “medium-sized bank trying to help students.” The laughable claim that a bank is trying to “help students” flies in the face of how a bank actually makes money and what the material interest of a bank is – indebting people (in this case, students). On top of this, Tangerine is not a “medium-sized bank,” but has been a subsidiary of Scotiabank since its $3.1 billion acquisition of the ING Bank of Canada in 2012.

As it is usually the case, money comes with strings attached. Who does SSMU now represent? Students or corporations? There is already a long history of McGill trying to silence political activists on campus, including violence during student strikes. The last thing we need is the SSMU becoming intertwined with corporate interest. Ironically, during Activities Night, political activist groups were placed right next to Tangerine’s corporate tent. Feelings of anger and confusion soon spread among the student groups. Due to complaints from Tangerine, SSMU then resorted to calling security on a few groups, an obvious attempt to silence those who were openly critical of Tangerine.

When security arrived, they insisted that Socialist Fightback activists were not allowed to ask for voluntary contributions to help fund our activities and help to pay for the printing of our literature. All this despite the fact that the whole event was dominated by a bank trying to get students to open accounts and sign up for credit cards; we all know what that leads to – debt and profits for the bank. It should also be noted that telling student clubs that they cannot independently fundraise at Activities Night directly contradicts the SSMU website which states, “As clubs are not guaranteed any funding from the SSMU, clubs are responsible for their own fundraising in order to support their events and initiatives.” SSMU executive Elaine Patterson has yet to respond to the conflicting messages delivered to student organisations regarding fundraising.

On top of Tangerine’s obnoxious presence and constant haranguing of students to register for their products, students at Activities Night also had to put up with their jarring presence as they loudly promoted themselves. However, when student activists exercised their freedom of expression by chanting “SSMU is for students, not for banks!” for about a minute, the bank’s event manager accused students of being disruptive bullies. This was a hypocritical complaint, especially after Tangerine had tried to silence and disrupt activism on campus through bureaucratic means, by making complaints and calling security. As members of SSMU, we expect that our representative body will give us a voice and won’t try to silence us.

By condoning increasing corporatization, SSMU violates its anti-austerity mandate, voted for by students, which includes a commitment to protecting and increasing student spaces on campus. This puts into question its accountability to the student body. Instead, SSMU should oppose corporatization and fight against the corporatization of McGill in general, which is directly tied to the problem of austerity.

The fight against predatory banks goes hand in hand with the fight for free and accessible post-secondary education, and this is a fight that the SSMU should be leading. This cannot be attained under capitalism, which regards education as a business enterprise. Only an alternative system where the driving force of the production and reproduction of knowledge is human fulfillment (rather than private profit) will create the material conditions for better quality education, and for free and genuinely accessible education for all.

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