From chattel slavery to the current period of neocolonial flag independence, the Caribbean labouring classes have yet to exercise substantive power over the political institutions that govern their lives. A system of popular assemblies with the capacity to challenge the authoritarian liberal capitalist democracies for power would be one of the best expressions of reparatory justice in the Caribbean.

Emancipation Day sends a clear message to the labouring classes that capitalism exploited their ancestors’ labour under chattel slavery and is doing the same to theirs under wage slavery. It is the responsibility of the revolutionary organizers to use Emancipation Day to strengthen the class consciousness, feminist commitments and anti-racist opposition of the labouring classes.