Leaders are no good

 

In the Green Party’s Party Political Broadcast of 22nd January its new eco-populist leader Zach Polanski ran through the various problems people face. He pointed out that most of the wealth we create ends up in the pockets of the super-rich. He observed, “This isn’t just an economic failure. It’s a failure of leadership. The people we elected choose to serve the wealthy. And, yes, that is obscene. Good leaders put people before profit”. 

In other words, vote for me and the Green Party and we’ll be good leaders. Oh yes?

He couldn’t be more wrong. The people workers elect don’t choose to serve the wealthy. The nature of capitalism, as a profit-making system that can only work for the profit-takers, obliges them to do this. That’s what’s obscene. The system — the organ-grinder not the monkeys.

Replacing them with “good leaders” who want to do good  won’t change things. They, too, would end up having to serve the wealthy.

What is needed is not a change of leaders, but to realise that no leader can do anything for us. What is needed is to understand that capitalism just cannot be changed to work for us. What is needed is to organise ourselves and act together to end capitalism. What is needed is to do it for ourselves without leaders of any kind.