Political party
A political party is an organized group of people with common views, who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government. The party agrees on some proposed policies and programmes, with a view to promoting the collective good or furthering their supporters' interests. While there is some international commonality in the way political parties are recognized and in how they operate, there are many differences, some are significant. Many political parties have an ideological core, but some do not, many represent ideologies different from their ideology at the time the party was founded. Many countries, such as Germany and India, have several significant political parties, some nations have one-party systems, such as China and Cuba; the United States is in practice a two-party system but with many smaller parties participating and a high degree of autonomy for individual candidates. Political factions have existed in democratic societies since ancient times. Plato writes in his Republic on the formation of political cliques in Classical Athens, the tendency of Athenian citizens to vote according to factional loyalty rather than for the public good.
In the Roman Republic, Polybius coined the term ochlocracy to describe the tendency of politicians to mobilise popular factionalist sentiment against their political rivals. Factional politics remained a part of Roman political life through the Imperial period and beyond, the poet Juvenal coined the phrase "bread and circuses" to describe the political class pandering to the citizenry through diversionary entertainments rather than through arguments about policy. "Bread and circuses" survived as part of Byzantine political life - for example, the Nika revolt during the reign of Justinian was a riot between the "Blues" and the "Greens"—two chariot racing factions at the Hippodrome, who received patronage from different Senatorial factions and religious sects. The patricians who sponsored the Blues and the Greens competed with each other to hold grander games and public entertainments during electoral campaigns, in order to appeal to the citizenry of Constantinople; the first modern political factions, can be said to have originated in early modern Britain.
The first political factions, cohering around a basic, if fluid, set of principles, emerged from the Exclusion Crisis and Glorious Revolution in late 17th century England. The Whigs supported Protestant constitutional monarchy against absolute rule, they were interested in the citizens of United Kingdom being free from the aristocracy and opposed to any tyranny, however they supported the constitutional aristocracy and does not consider the British nobility abusive because of its limits; the leader of the Whigs was Robert Walpole, who maintained control of the government in the period 1721–1742. As the century wore on, the factions began to adopt more coherent political tendencies as the interests of their power bases began to diverge; the Whig party's initial base of support from the great aristocratic families widened to include the emerging industrial interests and wealthy merchants. As well as championing constitutional monarchy with strict limits on the monarch's power, the Whigs adamantly opposed a Catholic king as a threat to liberty, believed in extending toleration to nonconformist Protestants, or dissenters.
A major influence on the Whigs were the liberal political ideas of John Locke, the concepts of universal rights employed by Locke and Algernon Sidney. Although the Tories were out of office for half a century, for most of this period the Tories retained party cohesion, with occasional hopes of regaining office at the accession of George II and the downfall of the ministry of Sir Robert Walpole in 1742, they acted as a united, though unavailing, opposition to Whig corruption and scandals. At times they cooperated with the "Opposition Whigs", Whigs who were in opposition to the Whig government, they regained power with the accession of George III in 1760 under Lord Bute. When they lost power, the old Whig leadership dissolved into a decade of factional chaos with distinct "Grenvillite", "Bedfordite", "Rockinghamite", "Chathamite" factions successively in power, all referring to themselves as "Whigs". Out of this chaos, the first distinctive parties emerged; the first such party was the Rockingham Whigs under the leadership of Charles Watson-Wentworth and the intellectual guidance of the political philosopher Edmund Burke.
Burke laid out a philosophy that described the basic framework of the political party as "a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed". As opposed to the instability of the earlier factions, which were tied to a particular leader and could disintegrate if removed from power, the party was centred around a set of core principles and remained out of power as a united opposition to government. A coalition including the Rockingham Whigs, led by the Earl of She
African nationalism
African nationalism is an umbrella term which refers to a group of political ideologies within Sub-Saharan Africa, which are based on the idea of national self-determination and the creation of nation states. The ideology emerged under European colonial rule during the 19th and 20th centuries and was loosely inspired by nationalist ideas from Europe. African nationalism was based on demands for self-determination and played an important role in forcing the process of decolonisation of Africa. However, the term refers to a broad range of different ideological and political movements and should not be confused with Pan-Africanism which may seek the federation of several or all nation states in Africa. Nationalist ideas in Sub-Saharan Africa emerged during the mid-19th century among the emerging black middle classes in West Africa. Early nationalists hoped to overcome ethnic fragmentation by creating nation-states. In its earliest period, it was inspired by African-American and Afro-Caribbean intellectuals from the Back-to-Africa movement who imported nationalist ideals current in Europe and the Americas at the time.
The early African nationalists were elitist and believed in the supremacy of Western culture but sought a greater role for themselves in political decision-making. They rejected African traditional religions and tribalism as "primitive" and embraced western ideas of Christianity and the nation state. However, one of the challenges faced by nationalists in unifying their nation after European rule were the divisions of tribes and the formation of ethnicism. African nationalism first emerged as a mass movement in the years after World War II as a result of wartime changes in the nature of colonial rule as well as social change in Africa itself. Nationalist political parties were established in all African colonies during the 1950s and their rise was an important reason for the decolonisation of Africa between c.1957 and 1966. However, African nationalism was never a single movement and political groups considered to be African nationalists varied by economic orientation and degrees of radicalism and violence.
Nationalists leaders struggled to find their own social and national identity following the European influence that controlled the political landscape during the colonial occupation. African nationalism in the colonial era was framed purely in opposition to colonial rule and was therefore unclear or contradictory about its other objectives. According to historian Robert I. Rotberg, African nationalism would not have emerged without colonialism, its relation to Pan-Africanism was ambiguous with many nationalist leaders professing Pan-African loyalties but still refusing to commit to supranational unions. African nationalists of the period have been criticised for their continued use of ideas and policies associated with colonial states. In particular, nationalists attempted to preserve national frontiers created arbitrarily under colonial rule after independence and create a national sense of national identity among the heterogeneous populations inside them. African nationalism exists in an uneasy relationship with tribalism and sub-national ethnic nationalism which differ in their conceptions of political allegiance.
Many Africans distinguish between national identities. Some nationalists have argued. During the late 1950s and 1960s, scholars of African nationalist struggles have focused on the Western-educated male elites who led the nationalist movements and assumed power after independence; the history of studies of women's involvement in African nationalist struggle and party politics can be traced along intellectual and political paths that followed paralleled, but have deviated from or led the course of Africanist historiography. The goal of these women involved in the African nationalism movement was to recover Africa's past and to celebrate the independent emergence of independent Africa, it was necessary to raise awareness of this cause, calling to the new emerging generation of African women, raised in a better, more stable society. Although, the challenges they faced seemed more significant, they however had it better than past generations, allowing them to raise awareness of the African Nationalist moment.
Whereas women's historians interested in effecting changes in the process and production of American or European history had to fight their way onto trains, moving through centuries on well-worn gauges, the "new" Africanist train had left the station in the early'60s. With a few exceptions, scholars have devoted little more than a passing mention of the presence of African women as conscious political actors in African nationalism. Anne McClintock has stressed that "all nationalisms are gendered." Undoubtedly, women played a significant role in arousing national consciousness as well as elevating their own political and social position through African nationalism. It is with this in mind, that both feminism and the research of these women become critical to the re-evaluation of the history of African nationalism. In 1943, a prominent organization called the African National Congress Women's League used its branches throughout the country to build a national campaign; as leaders and activists, women participated in African nationalism through national organisations.
The decade of the 1950s was a landmark because of the significant number of women who were politically involved in the nationalist struggle. A minority of women were affiliated into male-dominated national organisations. Founded by women in 1960, The National Council of Sierra Leone was to become, in 1968, the women's section of the ruling All People's Congress a
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo known as DR Congo, the DRC, DROC, Congo-Kinshasa, or the Congo, is a country located in Central Africa. It is sometimes anachronistically referred to by its former name of Zaire, its official name between 1971 and 1997, it is, by area, the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa, the second-largest in all of Africa, the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of over 78 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populated Francophone country, the fourth-most-populated country in Africa, the 16th-most-populated country in the world. Eastern DR Congo is the scene of ongoing military conflict in Kivu, since 2015. Centred on the Congo Basin, the territory of the DRC was first inhabited by Central African foragers around 90,000 years ago and was reached by the Bantu expansion about 3,000 years ago. In the west, the Kingdom of Kongo ruled around the mouth of the Congo River from the 14th to 19th centuries. In the centre and east, the kingdoms of Luba and Lunda ruled from the 16th and 17th centuries to the 19th century.
In the 1870s, just before the onset of the Scramble for Africa, European exploration of the Congo Basin was carried out, first led by Henry Morton Stanley under the sponsorship of Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold formally acquired rights to the Congo territory at the Berlin Conference in 1885 and made the land his private property, naming it the Congo Free State. During the Free State, the colonial military unit, the Force Publique, forced the local population to produce rubber, from 1885 to 1908, millions of Congolese died as a consequence of disease and exploitation. In 1908, despite initial reluctance, formally annexed the Free State, which became the Belgian Congo; the Belgian Congo achieved independence on 30 June 1960 under the name Republic of the Congo. Congolese nationalist Patrice Lumumba was elected the first Prime Minister, while Joseph Kasa-Vubu became the first President. Conflict arose over the administration of the territory; the provinces of Katanga, under Moïse Tshombe, South Kasai attempted to secede.
After Lumumba turned to the Soviet Union for assistance in the crisis, the U. S. and Belgium became wary and oversaw his removal from office by Kasa-Vubu on 5 September and ultimate execution by Belgian-led Katangese troops on 17 January 1961. On 25 November 1965, Army Chief of Staff Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, who renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko came into power through a coup d'état. In 1971, he renamed the country Zaire; the country was run as a dictatorial one-party state, with his Popular Movement of the Revolution as the sole legal party. Mobutu's government received considerable support from the United States, due to its anti-communist stance during the Cold War. By the early 1990s, Mobutu's government began to weaken. Destabilisation in the east resulting from the 1994 Rwandan genocide and disenfranchisement among the eastern Banyamulenge population led to a 1996 invasion led by Tutsi FPR-ruled Rwanda, which began the First Congo War. On 17 May 1997, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, a leader of Tutsi forces from the province of South Kivu, became President after Mobutu fled to Morocco, reverting the country's name to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Tensions between President Kabila and the Rwandan and Tutsi presence in the country led to the Second Congo War from 1998 to 2003. Nine African countries and around twenty armed groups became involved in the war, which resulted in the deaths of 5.4 million people. The two wars devastated the country. President Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards on 16 January 2001 and was succeeded eight days as President by his son Joseph; the Democratic Republic of the Congo is rich in natural resources but has had political instability, a lack of infrastructure, issues with corruption and centuries of both commercial and colonial extraction and exploitation with little holistic development. Besides the capital Kinshasa, the two next largest cities Lubumbashi and Mbuji-Mayi are both mining communities. DR Congo's largest export is raw minerals, with China accepting over 50% of DRC's exports in 2012. In 2016, DR Congo's level of human development was ranked 176th out of 187 countries by the Human Development Index.
As of 2018, around 600,000 Congolese have fled to neighbouring countries from conflicts in the centre and east of the DRC. Two million children risk starvation, the fighting has displaced 4.5 million people. The sovereign state is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, African Union, COMESA; the Democratic Republic of the Congo is named after the Congo River, which flows throughout the country. The Congo River is the world's second largest river by discharge; the Comité d'études du haut Congo, established by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1876, the International Association of the Congo, established by him in 1879, were named after the river. The Congo River itself was named by early European sailors after the Kingdom of Kongo and its Bantu inhabitants, the Kongo people, when they encountered them in the 16th century; the word Kongo comes from the Kongo language. According to American writer Samuel Henry Nelson "It is probable that the word'Kongo' itself implies a public gathering and that it is based on the root konga,'to gather'."
The modern name of the Kongo people, Bakongo was introduced in the early 20th century. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been known in the past as, in chronological order, the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, the Repub
Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Congo's head of government. The current prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is Vital Kamerhe; the position of prime minister was present in the first government after independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the first prime minister Patrice Emery Lumumba. Over the years the position's powers and attributions have varied and there were long periods of time under Mobutu Sese Seko and the period following the First Congo War, when the position was abolished in 1966; the position was restored by Mobutu in 1977, as the title of "First State Commissioner" which, in reality, was weak in comparison to the pre-war office of Prime Minister, was occupied by several individuals who were appointed at Mobutu's whim. The office became vacant with Mobutu's forced ouster in 1997. Aside from the Lumumba Government, the Congo has known several powerful figures in the position, such as Moise Tshombe, who had led a secession of his native Katanga province, Étienne Tshisekedi, the long-time opponent of the Mobutu regime, brought to this position three times, by pressure from the people.
The position resurfaced as an institution of the Third Republic's constitution, Antoine Gizenga was appointed as the first Prime Minister of the Third Republic, on 30 December 2006. Gizenga, one of the few active and living politicians to hail from the DRC's colonial past, was Lumumba's Deputy-Prime Minister in 1960, served as Prime Minister of a rival national government in rebellion in February 1961. Under the constitution of the Third Republic, the prime minister shares the leadership of the executive branch of government with the president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the prime minister is appointed by the President, from the party or political group that has the majority in the National Assembly. The prime minister has a secondary role in the executive branch, when he or she is from the same party as the president, as the head of the executive is constitutionally the President. However, when there is cohabitation the prime minister's importance is enhanced because the president has little power to be exercised by himself or herself alone.
The constitution does not expressly outline any direct requirement for this position. The only litmus is the approval by the National Assembly of the government's composition and program, which leads to the investiture of the government. Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo List of heads of government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo List of heads of state of the Democratic Republic of the CongoHistorical: Colonial Heads of Congo Rulers of Katanga Rulers of Kuba Rulers of Luba Rulers of Ruund Rulers of Kasongo Luunda Rulers of Kongo Zaire
2011 Democratic Republic of the Congo general election
Presidential and parliamentary elections were held in Democratic Republic of the Congo on 28 November 2011. The government passed laws to abolish the second round of the presidential election and tried to change the legislative electoral system from proportional to majority representation, criticized by the opposition. International organizations such as the United Nations and the European Union raised concerns about the transparency of the elections. On 8 November 2011 opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi declared himself president saying the majority of people turned against President Kabila. On 28 November 2011 elections were held under difficult conditions. Voting was characterized by incidents of violence throughout the country; because of violence and delays in the delivery of ballot boxes elections were extended by a second day. Jean Andeka Adam Bombolé Joseph Kabila François Nicéphore Kakese Vital Kamerhe Oscar Kashala Léon Kengo Antipas Mbusa Nzanga Mobutu Josué Alex Mukendi Étienne Tshisekedi DR Congo's National Independent Electoral Commission has registered 32 million voters for the November elections.
First results released on 2 December 2011, with 15% of the vote counted, gave Kabila only a narrow lead of 940,000 votes against 912,000 votes for UPDS leader Tshisekedi. With half the precincts counted, President Joseph Kabila was leading with 4.9 million votes, or nearly 49%. His opponent Etienne Tshisekedi was trailing with 3.4 million votes, about 34%. However, this count did not include much of Kinshasa, where Tshisekedi was expected to have strong results. Kabila ceased all email and SMS services nationwide, it is said that over 5,000,000 of pre ticked ballot papers for the number 3 candidate, However no formal actions were taken by the CENI, which led to the population to act as they burned pre ticked ballot papers that were found. The announcement of final results was postponed to 8 December 2011; the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Kabila as the winner on December 9. The result was put into question by the Carter Center as well as the archbishop of Kinshasa, Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, claiming too many irregularities occurred to assure that the results reflected the will of the people.
The Carter Center indicated that ballots had been missing in some areas while in others Kabila achieved unrealistic results. Observers from the Carter Center noted that in some districts voter participation was reported to be 100 percent, a most unlikely possibility. MONUSCO, the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations voiced concern about the results. While Kabila admitted that some mistakes had been made in the process, he rejected concerns about the outcome; the result was confirmed by the Supreme Court of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Jerome Kitoko, President of the Supreme Court, announcing the official results proclaimed Kabila to be the winner of the Presidential election. In the parliamentary election, with 432 of 500 seats declared, Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy had 58 seats and Tshisekedi's Union for Democracy and Social Progress 34 seats. Allies of the PPRD gained 106 seats, with other new parties known to support Kabila, he will have 200 seats supporting him.
100 parties are expected to be represented in the parliament. Most of the undeclared seats are in Kinshasa and are to go to the opposition; the rebels in the 2012 East D. R. Congo conflict must resign. Democratic Republic of the Congo general election, 2006
MONUSCO
The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO, an acronym based on its French name, is a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, established by the United Nations Security Council in resolutions 1279 and 1291 of the United Nations Security Council to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War, though much of its focus subsequently turned to the Ituri conflict, the Kivu conflict and the Dongo conflict. The mission was known as the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo or MONUC, an acronym of its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo, until 2010; the initial UN presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before the passing of Resolution 1291, was a force of military observers to observe and report on the compliance on factions with the peace accords, a deployment authorised by the earlier Resolution 1258. Resolution 2348 provides the authority for the current MONUSCO mandate.
Since 1999, about US$8.74 billion has been spent to fund the UN peacekeeping effort in DRC. As of October 2017, the total strength of UN peacekeeping troops in DRC is 18,300. More than thirty nations have contributed military and police personnel for peacekeeping effort, with India being the single largest contributor. In June 2011, it was reported that India is preparing to scale back its military commitment to MONUSCO; the origin of this second United Nations military presence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is found in the Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement on 17 July 1999 and the following United Nations Security Council Resolution 1258 of 6 August 1999, authorizing the deployment of a maximum of 90 officers. The first liaison officers arrived in the DRC on 3 September 1999. In November 1999 the number of liaison officers totaled 39, distributed in the capitals of the warring countries including 24 who were stationed in Kinshasa. In January 2000 they reached the number of 79 and they were spread over the whole territory of DRC.
Their mission was to liaise with all the warring factions, give a technical assistance and prepare the deployment of military observers. On 24 February 2000 with the resolution 1291, the U. N. Security Council authorized the deployment of a maximum of 5537 military personnel in the DRC, including 500 military observers. On 4 April 2000 the Senegalese Major General Mountago Diallo was appointed as the commander of MONUSCO's military force; the mandate is to monitor the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement and the redeployment of belligerent forces, to develop an action plan for the overall implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement, to work with the parties to obtain the release of all prisoners of war, military captives and the return of the remains, to facilitate humanitarian assistance and to assist the Facilitator of the National Dialogue. Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, the U. N. Security Council authorized MONUC to take the necessary action, in the areas of deployment of its infantry battalions, to protect UN personnel, facilities and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of its personnel, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.
In December 2000 there were 224 military personnel deployed, including 148 observers in 13 points around the country. The observers could only record the non-application of the Ceasefire, the violent fighting at Kisangani and in the Equateur and Katanga provinces as well as the presence of foreign troops in the DRC; the deployment of UN troops was impossible due to the security situation and the reluctance of the Congolese government. Though the beginning of 2001 was still hampered by sporadic combat, the military observers could fulfill their mission in regards with the disengagement of forces and the withdrawal of some of the Rwandan and Ugandan forces. In March 2001, the first Uruguayan guard unit arrived in Kalemie; the force was deployed in four sectors at Kananga, Kisangani and Mbandaka. In July 2001, the force strength was of 2366 soldiers, including 363 military observers distributed in 22 cities and 28 teams monitoring the disengagement of forces; the contingent soldiers totaled 1869.
They came from South Africa, Morocco and Tunisia. Guard units protected MONUC installations in Kinshasa, Kisangani, Kalemie and Mbandaka. A Uruguayan riverine unit and a South African air medical evacuation team were deployed; the deployed troops were only to protect the sites against looting and theft, the force had neither the mandate nor the strength to protect the civilian population, or to extract MONUC personnel. Following the Security Council Resolution 1355, the military observers, within their capacities, could contribute to the voluntary disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process of the armed groups. With Security Council Resolution 1376, the Security Council launched the third phase of the deployment of MONUC troops, in the East of DRC; the site for the logistical base was planned to be Kindu. In 2002, the 450 military observers, split in 95 teams, continued to monitor the Ceasefire along the ex-frontlines; the teams investigated violations of the Ceasefire. Foreign troops continued to leave the country.
The riverine units escorted the first ships on the Congo river, again open to commercial traffic. In June 2002 the UN troops' total number was 3804. Contingents from Ghana and Bolivia joined the force, of which more than a third of the soldiers were Uru
Anti-capitalism
Anti-capitalism encompasses a wide variety of movements and attitudes that oppose capitalism. Anti-capitalists, in the strict sense of the word, are those who wish to replace capitalism with another type of economic system. Socialism advocates public or direct worker ownership and administration of the means of production and allocation of resources, a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals, with an egalitarian method of compensation. A theory or policy of social organisation which aims at or advocates the ownership and democratic control of the means of production, by workers or the community as a whole, their administration or distribution in the interests of all. Socialists argue for a cooperative/community economy, or the commanding heights of the economy, with democratic control by the people over the state, although there have been some undemocratic philosophies. "State" or "worker cooperative" ownership is in fundamental opposition to "private" ownership of means of production, a defining feature of capitalism.
Most socialists argue that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and profit, among a small segment of society that controls capital and derives its wealth through exploitation. Socialists argue that the accumulation of capital generates waste through externalizations that require costly corrective regulatory measures, they point out that this process generates wasteful industries and practices that exist only to generate sufficient demand for products to be sold at a profit. Socialists argue that capitalism consists of irrational activity, such as the purchasing of commodities only to sell at a time when their price appreciates, rather than for consumption if the commodity cannot be sold at a profit to individuals in need. Private ownership imposes constraints on planning, leading to inaccessible economic decisions that result in immoral production, unemployment and a tremendous waste of material resources during crisis of overproduction. According to socialists, private property in the means of production becomes obsolete when it concentrates into centralized, socialized institutions based on private appropriation of revenue until the role of the capitalist becomes redundant.
With no need for capital accumulation and a class of owners, private property in the means of production is perceived as being an outdated form of economic organization that should be replaced by a free association of individuals based on public or common ownership of these socialized assets. Socialists view private property relations as limiting the potential of productive forces in the economy. Early socialists criticized capitalism for concentrating power and wealth within a small segment of society, does not utilise available technology and resources to their maximum potential in the interests of the public. For the influential German individualist anarchist philosopher Max Stirner, "private property is a spook which "lives by the grace of law" and it "becomes'mine' only by effect of the law". In other words, private property exists purely "through the protection of the State, through the State's grace." Recognising its need for state protection, Stirner argued that "t need not make any difference to the'good citizens' who protects them and their principles, whether an absolute King or a constitutional one, a republic, if only they are protected.
And what is their principle, whose protector they always'love'? Not that of labour", rather it is "interest-bearing possession... labouring capital, therefore... labour yet little or none at all of one's own, but labour of capital and of the—subject labourers"." French anarchist Pierre Joseph Proudhon opposed government privilege that protects capitalist and land interests, the accumulation or acquisition of property which he believed hampers competition and keeps wealth in the hands of the few. The Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Gimenez Igualada saw "capitalism an effect of government; that which we call capitalism is not something else but a product of the State, within which the only thing, being pushed forward is profit, good or badly acquired. And so to fight against capitalism is a pointless task, since be it State capitalism or Enterprise capitalism, as long as Government exists, exploiting capital will exist; the fight, but of consciousness, is against the State.". Within anarchism there emerged a critique of wage slavery which refers to a situation perceived as quasi-voluntary slavery, where a person's livelihood depends on wages when the dependence is total and immediate.
It is a negatively connoted term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. The term wage slavery has been used to criticize economic exploitation and social stratification, with the former seen as unequal bargaining power between labor and capital, the latter as a lack of workers' self-management, fulfilling job choices and leisure in an economy. Libertarian socialists believe if freedom is valued society must work towards a system in which individuals have the power to decide economic issues along with political issues. Libertarian socialists seek to replace unjustified authority with direct democracy, volun
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