The next American revolution will be based in a United Front: people who may not like each other, may not even agree with each other, joining despite everything in struggle to enact an economic program in their common interest. For today’s America, CPI has created its four-point program to address this need.

Political leaders and a mass movement will coalesce behind the united front program, creating their own institutions or “dual powers” to replace the functions of government. During a time of crisis, they swoop in to establish a people’s government, and end the dictatorship of the big banks and corporations to create a peaceful and prosperous society.

Though it may seem impossible, many modern-day revolutions have happened. What is truly impossible is pressuring our existing government into reform. Though the majority of the US population favors free healthcare, prices only climb. Though mass protests against Zionism fill the streets, full support is given to israel with American tax dollars. Without fundamental reforms, the US will continue to be a country of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. Revolution is not only possible, but inevitable as the collapse of the Dollar System and US monopoly power reins in a new era. The American people will be forced to choose either to endure tightening dictatorship and poverty, or to rise up and create a new system.

The existing Left has failed to create revolution because of their faults. Social-Democrats like Bernie Sanders preach to the masses then vote for wars. The Defeatist Left and Democrat-aligned Left make weak concessions. Adventurist Left anarchists scare normal people away with street-fighting insanity. The Left has become associated with psychotic “woke” purity tests. It’s time to create a truly populist movement based on essential economic demands understood by the average person, which is optimistic and welcoming.

Though CPI understands that a people’s government cannot be established without resistance, it advocates for a peaceful transition to power. It does not advocate for violence, but rather understands that the forces of imperialist reaction are the real source of violence and chaos both in America, and around the world.

At the Center for Political Innovation, we support the US military, and we strongly oppose the many terrible wars for which the US military is used. Sadly, many people fail to understand the difference between regular servicemembers – most of whom have enlisted either out of a patriotic desire to protect their country or for financial stability – and the generals, politicians, and powerful moneyed interests who start wars. Furthermore, in the current age, many of the most powerful anti-war voices in the United States are coming from within the US military. CPI stands with these voices in saying: no American should be sent to fight and die in pointless wars for profit. Support the military – oppose imperialist war!

Why does the US economy crash about once every ten years? Why do we have 28 vacant homes for every 1 homeless person? How can amazing technological progress lead to lowered standards of living?

A + B + C = D. Decades of highly-paid economists have tried and failed to get past this simple equation.

For any product, the cost of materials (A), plus the cost of transportation (B), plus the cost of labor (C), creates the final price (D). So, where does profit come from? Materials and transportation (A & B) are external factors. That leaves only C, the cost of labor, under the business owner’s control. To make a profit, the worker must be paid less than the value of their work. If a worker generates $100 in value, they must be paid less than $100 for the business owner to make any profit.

In isolation, for a single company, the equation makes sense. But in a capitalist economy, where everything is turned into a product, and every product is sold for profit, there’s a problem: who buys it?

The vast majority of society are workers, who can only buy products with the money they make from their job. And as the equation above shows, no worker can be paid enough to buy back the products they make. Products are made by workers for wages, and sold to workers for wages – but the wages can never buy all of the products that have been made. The market fills up with products that cannot be sold. This is called overproduction.

When technology advances, the problem gets worse. When one person can handle work that used to require ten people, there are even more products being made and even fewer wages being paid. Profits go down, too – as profits can only come from human labor (C), when less labor goes into a product, less profit can be made.

This overproduction is the paradoxical flaw at the heart of capitalism: the more society can make, the poorer people get.

Supposedly, the left represents the side of the people. When workers fight for better conditions, when minorities fight for equality, when citizens protest against war – the left should be there. Yet in the current moment, as the economy gets worse and worse for regular people, the American empire escalates ever-riskier conflicts overseas, and the American people grow more desperate for a positive message and vision… why is the Western left obsessed over culture war? When people are finally more ready than they’ve ever been to unite and demand positive change, why would any genuinely progressive force turn them against each other? Unfortunately, that’s the point – it’s a trap.

For over sixty years, the rich and powerful of America have worked to create a new, “synthetic” left. After World War II, American intelligence began quietly supporting a large variety of “socialist” intellectuals, artists, and public figures who shared one key feature: claiming that the US was bad, but the Soviet Union was worse. This way, anti-establishment sentiment could be turned on its head and made to support the status quo. While the leaders of the Communist Party were jailed, and civil rights leaders like MLK, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton were killed, huge amounts of funding poured into universities, nonprofits, and media organizations promoting neutered versions of their ideas. Now, in the social media age, the tools to influence public opinion are stronger than ever – just a few tweaks to an invisible algorithm can put one view on every screen, and bury another entirely. After decades of manipulation, we live in an era where the mainstream “left” are the unwitting puppets of corporations and the US government.

At the Center for Political Innovation, we believe the only way forward is together. We remember that while people of all races, genders, religions, lifestyles, and beliefs may be separated and pit against each other by this system, our true interests are the same. We all need well-paying jobs, secure housing, affordable healthcare, and an end to endless war. We need a government that fights for working families. We reject the synthetic left’s claims that men and women are natural enemies, that white and black can never get along, and that the evils of oppression spring from the inherent prejudice in the human heart. We reject those who claim to oppose inequality but really enforce competition. We believe in a better world for all.

Are there “productive” and “non-productive” jobs, and should socialists care about the difference? Yes – but maybe not in the way you think. Marx does indeed write that half of the working class in Britain in his time were not “productive,” but he is not calling them lazy. Instead, he’s talking about the basic rule of capitalism: spending money to make more money. A “productive” worker directly makes money for their boss, by producing something that can be sold to someone else. Whether it’s car parts at a factory, or lattes at Starbucks, productive work makes a profit. A “non-productive” worker does something not directly profitable. Teachers, city street cleaners, and personal servants are hired for a service they provide, rather than to make money for the company, making their work economically non-productive. A chef at a restaurant is productive, while a mansion’s private chef is not, even when they cook the same food for the same pay.

So, does this mean that productive workers are good, and non-productive workers are bad? Certainly not! In countries with free public healthcare, doctors are both non-productive and hugely socially valuable. The reason it matters which workers are “productive” and “non-productive” is only for organizing tactics. When productive workers form a union, they can “open the books” and negotiate directly on the basis of the profits they provide – “your materials cost this much, and you sell the product for this much, so you can afford to pay us this much and still make a profit.” For non-productive work, this approach does not apply, so different tactics are needed. Productive or non-productive, all workers benefit from organizing to improve labor conditions.

What does it mean to be a “socialist country?” The People’s Republic of China, run by the Chinese Communist Party, certainly considers itself one. But many in the West don’t understand how this could be – after all, China has a market economy with huge corporations, billionaires, and an ever-growing GDP. Isn’t socialism when the government runs everything?

Well, no. The truth is, despite what half-baked news stories will tell you, the socialism of Marx, Engels, and Lenin doesn’t mean the government owns every industry, or every store, or your toothbrush. Ultimately, a capitalist economy is one where profits are in command of society, and a socialist economy is one the government manages on behalf of the people. In the United States, powerful corporate lobbyists tell the government what to do. Companies produce whatever they want, based only on what’s profitable. Houses are built and left empty while people go homeless, food is produced and thrown away while people starve… the only rule is profit for private companies. In China, it’s the opposite – no matter how big a company is, they have to follow the plan the government has set out for the development of the country.

Roughly 50% of industry in China is state-owned, and the government controls banking and the lending of money. If you want to run a private electric company, the government will only allow you to operate if you promise to expand electric capacity by this much. A private railway company has to meet government targets for laying new track. Construction companies, computer companies, healthcare companies – they all are allowed to make money, and lots of it, but only as long as they follow the guidelines set by the Communist party.

China is a socialist country, and an ever-richer one, because the Chinese government controls and manages market forces for the benefit of the population.

Karl Marx, Lenin, and many historical Communist figures were famously atheist. Many Americans, meanwhile, are very proud of their strong faith and religious tradition. Does embracing communist ideas mean abandoning religion? No! Just look to the Nicaraguan people, whose socialist government bears the slogan "Christianity, Socialism, and Solidarity." So why is communism perceived as anti-faith? To answer this, let’s look at history.

Karl Marx lived during Europe’s overthrow of feudalism, and its transition into capitalism. He participated in the 1848 German revolution, an anti-feudal revolution largely targeting the Roman Catholic church. During feudalism, religion was an essential part of propping up the social hierarchy – kings ruled by divine right, and the population was compelled by religion to obey. It was the same in Russia, where the tsar was not only the king but the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. In China, local landlords and nobles forced peasants to worship and make sacrifices at their temples. In all of these countries, revolutionaries fought against the feudal government and its use of religion as a tool. As a result, atheism was a popular counter-ideology for defenders of social programs, whether Communist or Capitalist.

However, the essence of communism is not any specific cultural ideology, but economic progress. While early communists fought against religious governments, many modern socialists are finding religion an ally to their cause, from Christian Bolivarian socialists in Latin America to Muslim Ba’ath socialists in the Arab world. This is because today, in the liberal capitalist societies of the present, religion serves a very different role than it did under feudalism. Religion is optional. In fact, as liberal capitalism works more and more to isolate people from one another and break down all social ties, many of the most prominent free-market capitalists have turned against religion. As a result, many of those rebelling against today’s system are motivated by pro-religious sentiments, and a number of socialist countries have adopted religious systems.

The essence of Communist ideology is for workers to join together and create a government that manages the economy for the benefit of the population. You can be a Communist and be Christian, or Muslim, or atheist, or any other faith. Whatever your personal faith or lack thereof, whatever motivates you to believe in a better future for humanity, what’s important is the earthly goals we all unite to pursue.