Labor, nature, and the evolution of humanity - Mary-Alice Waters

Where did humanity come from?How did we arrive where we are today?Why is that even important?Because without understanding how human society, since our remotest ancestors, has been created through social labor, working people remain prisoners of the capitalist epoch in which we live.Without knowing how our labor transforms nature, how it's the motor force along humanity's ongoing road, we can't see beyond the class exploitation that warps every aspect of our social relations, ideas, and values.The dictatorship of capital hasn't always existed. It's a few hundred years old. Like slavery and serfdom before it, capitalist rule had a beginning. . . and will have an end.Only the revolutionary conquest of state power by the working class, conscious of our class position and conditions of emancipation, can open the door to a future. One based not on dog-eat-dog capitalist exploitation, degradation of nature, subjugation of women, racism, and war.A world built on human solidarity. A socialist world. That's what a long view of history helps us understand."Informative, thought-provoking, iconoclastic, and highly recommended." -Midwest Book Review"Essential for understanding the world in which we liveCapitalism will not disappear by itself. It must be disappeared, through the struggles of men and women to transform society."-Fernando Gonzlez, president of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP)"Books like Labor, Nature, and the Evolution of Humanity are important in the world today.They're important for us in Cuba."-Vctor Dreke, long-time revolutionary Cuban combatant"George Novack's The Long View of History [now part of the new Pathfinder book] 'opened my horizons' to a materialist explanation of history." -Pedro Pablo Rodrguez, lead editor of complete works of Jos Mart"People can go out and fight about everyday problems. But they need to transcend these individual situations as they fight. That's exactly what this book is about."-Zuleica Romay, director of Afro-American Studies at Casa de las Amricas"As an introduction to an important but now neglected side of one of the great debates of our age, this short book genuinely deserves attention."-Peter W. Wood, president, National Association of Scholars