1. We want freedom and liberation. Capitalism is a system of exploitation and oppression. For working people, capitalism is nothing more than slavery, where the shackles that bind us are the threats of starvation and misery if we do not labor for the profit of others. We organize to defeat capitalism and free ourselves from this modern-day slavery — to liberate ourselves from exploitation and oppression, and take into our hands the power to determine the destiny of ourselves, our class and our society — by building a classless, communist society.

2. We want to work and build a better life. Capitalism uses unemployment and low wages to keep working people divided and fighting each other for the scraps they see fit to leave us. We fight for all the means of production, large and small, to be taken into common, social ownership and controlled by working people through workplace assemblies in order to end unemployment and begin using the total productive forces of society to bring about an end to material need and the material basis for classes.

3. We want an end to exploitation. Every hour of every day, working people are robbed of what rightly belongs to them. The product of our collective labor is taken from us and sold on the market to benefit the capitalist owners of the means of production. This exploitation of our labor is the blackened heart and soul of capitalist society. We fight for an end to exploitation through the abolition of private ownership of the means of production, and the abolition of the wages system, wage slavery and debt slavery.

4. We want an end to oppression. Capitalism tries to divide humanity from each other on the basis of race, nationality, gender, sexuality, age and ability. By denying basic human decency and equality to some, capitalism injures and degrades us all. We consider the fight against such discrimination, bigotry and oppression a necessary task, and fight for the social equality and liberation of all those who carry the dual yoke of exploitation and oppression.

5. We want communities and conditions of life fit for human beings. Capitalism has forced working people to live in the worst possible conditions. Our housing is sub-standard and often truly unfit for human habitation. Our streets, bridges and public buildings are crumbling under us. Our food and water are laced with chemicals that threaten our very existence. Our public services, from garbage collection to fire fighting, are underfunded and understaffed, which threatens to unravel the fabric of society. We fight for the establishment of neighborhood assemblies of working people to take control and begin organizing a program of wholesale reconstruction of our communities.

6. We want and deserve the truth. Capitalism seeks to keep working people ignorant and distracted. They use the media and the educational system to trick working people and convince them that there is no workable alternative to what exists today. From “official history” to modern politics to the “bread and circuses” that define modern “entertainment,” the goal of the capitalist class is to make it as difficult as possible for working people to think. We fight for our class to take control of the media and educational system, to reorganize them and kick open the doors so that working people can not only learn and educate themselves about the facts and truths of society, but can also take that knowledge and pass it on using every avenue available.

7. We want a world for our children. It was Karl Marx who said that the wealth of society has two parents: its father is labor and its mother is nature. Throughout its history, the capitalists have acted as barbarians and social brigands — robbing the father and raping the mother to acquire their wealth. As long as capitalism is allowed to exist, this rape of the environment and robbery of labor will continue. We work to use environmentally-sustainable methods and technology to begin undoing the damage caused by capitalism and clean up this world — a world we do not own; a world our children and their children must live with when we are gone.

8. We want an end to the violence and terrorism we endure daily. Terrorism comes in many different forms. Under capitalism, the difference between terrorism and “law and order” depends on who is carrying it out. Every day, working people are subjected to terrorism: layoffs and workplace closings, police intimidation and brutality, lack of health care and care for the elderly, poverty, war, discrimination, bigotry, hunger, gang violence, exploitation, and oppression. We believe it is the right of every working person to organize and defend themselves against violence and terrorism committed by the capitalists and their state by any means necessary.

9. We want justice and democracy that works for working people. All kinds of people throw around the words “justice” and “democracy” as a way to corral working people and keep them in the “respectable” boundaries of capitalist society. We understand that these concepts are defined differently based on class. “Justice” means workers go to jail while capitalism gets away with murder. “Democracy” means freedom for the capitalists to exploit and oppress us ... and the “right” to starve for workers. We fight for justice and democracy that is based on the needs of working people — for rights that are based in the real world; for democracy in all aspects of society, and transformed from a form of rule into a social practice; for justice that begins with the understanding that exploitation and oppression are crimes against humanity.

10. We want a future that is free, peaceful and sustainable. We as working people and as human beings can never be free as long as the society we live in is based on inequality, theft and violence. As long as capitalism lives, working people will suffer at its hands. When capitalism dies, we shall begin to live. The Declaration of Independence talks about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Only through fighting for a working people’s republic, the first step on the path to a classless society, can we make these unalienable rights meaningful and real for the working-class majority of this society. Our demand is modest: We Only Want the Earth.

Adopted by the Assembly of the Whole, December 22, 2008