Three struggles — one trap The circumstances in Spain, France and Germany are different. But everywhere the same political mechanism appears. A struggle begins from below. People discover that acting together gives them power. Then political organizations tell them: Turn your demand into legislation. Put pressure on parliament. Choose the correct party. Wait for the election. This reverses the real relationship. Workers do not become powerful because politicians listen to them. Politicians begin making promises because workers, tenants and students have started acting independently. Parliament then tries to transform active participants back into passive voters. In Spain, housing anger is already being converted into an election issue. In France, the student rebellion is already being interpreted through the coming presidential contest. In Germany, opposition to conscription is repeatedly redirected toward what the Bundestag should or should not decide. The message is always: Stop deciding yourselves. Choose somebody who will decide for you. Neither right nor left can abolish capitalist necessity The parliamentary right openly defends property, military power and “order.” The parliamentary left promises a different distribution of expenditure: more housing, more schools, perhaps somewhat less military spending. But governments do not stand above capitalist society distributing resources according to freely chosen priorities. They administer an economy based on profitability, wage labor, competition and accumulation. They defend national capital in world competition. They maintain the machinery of the state. And when interstate competition becomes sharper, every government faces pressure to strengthen the military apparatus. That is why replacing one governing party with another does not eliminate the forces producing high rents, austerity, precarious work and militarization. There can certainly be concessions. The French government has already withdrawn one proposed education measure under pressure from the movement. Such retreats matter. But they demonstrate something very different from the usefulness of parliament: collective struggle can force concessions. KEEP THE STRUGGLE IN OUR OWN HANDS In every school, neighborhood and workplace: Discuss together. Decide together. Form open general assemblies. Elect delegates for specific tasks. Make them immediately recallable. Send mass delegations to other schools, neighborhoods and workplaces. Exchange information directly across cities and borders. Do not allow parties or unions to negotiate away decisions taken by the people in struggle. Do not divide housing, wages, education and militarization into separate specialist campaigns. Their common basis lies in capitalist society itself. And do not wait for the next election. Spain’s tenants, France’s students and Germany’s school students are already demonstrating a simple fact that parliamentary politics tries constantly to conceal: We are strongest not when we choose who governs us, but when we organize our struggles ourselves. The task is not to put better people at the head of the state. The task is to extend the struggle until workers themselves become the force that decides.