Geopolitical Outlook

  There are very real and legitimate criticisms to make about billionaire, Microsoft founder, and outspoken Malthusian, Bill Gates. He does not need to be a mustache-twirling, cartoonish villain in order to be considered evil. He has been at the forefront of pushing further privatization and destroying whatever is left of New York's public sector; in particular, he has been attacking New York's public schools and teachers unions for several years now, while using his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to enrich and advance private schools . He is also one of the world's leading funders of privatized healthcare in West Africa . And along with other NGOs such as Oxfam, the Gates Foundation acts as a means for the capitalist-imperialist class to leverage debt onto African nations by lending them money at unreasonably high rates of interest, bleeding the continent dry economically as Wall Street accumulates over half of its wealth and holds back its development.

  Under capitalism, most if not all facets of society are dictated by capital and profits; people are subordinated to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie through the exploitation of human labour in order to generate value. Yet, liberal postmodernist buzzwords such as “totalitarian” and “authoritarian” are rarely if ever used to describe the system of capitalism. Distrust of the ruling class is indeed justified, but it needs to be grounded in material and economic reality. The only way to guarantee true freedom for every individual is to put forward demands for the  collective  rights of the masses in the struggle for socialism. Individual liberties, especially America’s culturally libertarian ethos, are at odds with socialism and thus have no place in the struggle. Engels reminds us that the dictatorship of the proletariat, under socialism and communism, is a necessary form of authority that needs to be exercised in order to preserve and enhance the gains of the revolution. “Authoritar