[Marxism] From Bailout to Fightback

[J Rothermel <jayroth6@xxxxxxx>]

http://www.workers.org/2009/us/jobs_0122/


  What can win jobs?

By Fred Goldstein
Published Jan 15, 2009 9:01 PM

The intensifying capitalist crisis, which is bringing greater and 
greater suffering daily, is leaving the workers and the oppressed with 
no alternative but to organize a fightback. The deadly waves of 
unemployment, foreclosures, homelessness, hunger and repression are 
spreading while the ruling-class politicians and experts debate over the 
terms of the so-called “stimulus package.”

With 533,000 jobs lost in December, official unemployment went up to a 
16-year high of 7.2 percent. The annual job loss for 2008 was over 2.59 
million, the highest since World War II. The rapid rate of layoffs has 
brought the official number of unemployed to 11.1 million workers.

Unemployment of Black men over the age of 20, which was already 
officially double-digit, jumped from 12.1 percent to 13.4 percent in 
December. For African-American youth from 16 to 19, the figures were a 
staggering 32.2 percent rising to 33.7 percent in the same month. White 
youth unemployment also rose to 18.7 percent.

The rarely published figure of “total unemployment” grew from 12.6 
percent to 13.5 percent. Total unemployment includes those workers 
forced to take part-time work who need full-time jobs as well as workers 
who are known to have become so discouraged that they have stopped 
looking for work.

The average number of hours worked was down to 33.3 in December, the 
lowest since these records were first kept in 1964.

The most important aspect of the December figures is that December is 
usually a month of increased hiring, even during slow times, as 
retailers gear up for holiday sales, manufacturers put on additional 
workers to fill rush orders for inventory, and the restaurant and 
entertainment industries have higher sales.

Instead, December saw the biggest decline in retail sales since record 
keeping began in 1970, despite price-slashing sales of 50 to 70 percent 
off and buy-one-get-one-free offers. The International Council of 
Shopping Centers estimated that 148,000 retail stores shut down in 2008. 
It projected that another 73,100 retail stores will shut down in the 
first six months of 2009. The closures would result in the loss of 
625,000 to 800,000 retail jobs. (Washington Post, Jan. 9)

*‘Stimulus program’ smaller than a band-aid*

Considering the catastrophic wave of unemployment, with at least 20 
million jobless or severely underemployed right now, and the prospects 
for a massive increase in the coming period, all the speculation about 
whether the “stimulus package” will add 3 million or 3.5 million jobs 
over the next two years seems utterly inadequate.

The government figure of 11.1 million unemployed, or 7.2 percent, is 
based upon a workforce of 154 million. The more realistic “total 
unemployment” figure cited above of 13.4 percent equals 20.6 million, 
according to the government.

Furthermore, the stimulus package now being projected amounts to $775 
billion. Of this, 40 percent is in tax cuts, which are not necessarily 
going to create jobs. And, worst of all, 90 percent of the spending is 
to go to private capitalists. So it is largely a handout to the 
capitalists in the hope that they will create enough jobs.

With all the talk about studying the New Deal, this program takes an 
opposite approach to that of the Roosevelt administration. While the New 
Deal was purely a band-aid, filled with limitations and flaws and 
calculated to save capitalism by preventing a mass uprising of the 
workers, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) nevertheless provided 
direct jobs to 8 million workers during the decade, or one-fifth of the 
workforce. At any given time, anywhere from 2 million to 3 million 
workers were employed by the government in these programs—the equivalent 
of 9 million to 10 million today.

The present plans for government spending set up a situation in which 
some 20 million unemployed workers will have to compete for 1 million to 
1.5 million jobs in the coming year—assuming that the job creation 
projections are anywhere near correct. Such a situation in which workers 
are desperately seeking scarce jobs will tend to lower wages, set worker 
against worker and help the bosses.

The workers should of course take advantage of any opportunity to get 
new jobs created to help feed themselves and their families. But they 
must not sit back and let the economic “experts” in Washington and Wall 
Street dictate the terms of the economic package. They must get 
organized to impose their own economic demands on the capitalist government.

They could start by demanding that every nickel of the more than $1 
trillion already given to the banks be taken back and made available for 
jobs and services to the workers and the communities. The banks are so 
arrogant that they won’t even tell the government what they are doing 
with this money.

*From bailout to fightback*

The struggle is in its early stages and the workers are on the 
defensive. It is natural that at this stage popular organizations want 
to take advantage of the term “bailout” to expose the handouts to the 
banks and the bosses. But, as the struggle progresses, the concept of 
the capitalist government bailing out the people has to be shifted to 
the concept of the workers fighting back.

The funds to stem the crisis have to be put under the supervision of the 
workers, the unions, community organizations and other mass 
organizations—and not the bosses. It is the masses who are suffering 
from the crisis. They should be empowered to deal with it.

Only the masses will enforce a living wage, job guarantees, union 
rights, anti-racist practices and rights for women workers. The 
capitalists are skilled and experienced at manipulating government 
subsidies that are supposed to go for creating jobs. Instead they turn 
things around to maximize their profits. Relying on profiteering 
capitalists—and there is no other kind!—to save the working class is the 
worst possible course to pursue.

There must be a movement toward creating organs of popular power at the 
local, regional and national level to stop the layoffs and defend the 
workers’ right to a job; to demand a guarantee of jobs or income; an end 
to foreclosures and evictions; to organize the unemployed and the 
employed into a united movement demanding jobs for all.

As the crisis unfolds, the question must be raised, what is the cause of 
the crisis? Paul Krugman, a liberal economist, cites the fact that the 
U.S. economy could create $30 trillion worth of goods and services in 
the next two years. That would be sufficient to vastly reduce unemployment.

Krugman, who recently won a Nobel Prize for economics, restricted his 
commentary to a criticism of Barack Obama’s economic program. He brushed 
by the fundamental question. He did not bother to ask why, when there is 
the economic capacity to employ all the workers, is unemployment going 
through the roof?

The answer is that while the U.S. economy can produce $30 trillion worth 
of goods and services, it is in the form of commodities that must be 
sold for profit and only for profit. Human need means nothing to capitalism.

It is not as if the masses of people do not need the $30 trillion worth 
of goods and services. In fact, right now they are being deprived of the 
very means of life by an economic storm artificially created by 
capitalism itself.

The masses have been impoverished for more than 30 years by union 
busting, wage and benefit cuts, massive destruction of jobs at living 
wages and their replacement by low-wage jobs. At the same time the 
corporations have vied with each other to capture markets and sell more 
and more—purely to make more profit. They fostered every kind of 
debt—credit card debt, mortgage debt, auto loan debt and so on—to keep 
the profits rolling in.

Finally the entire edifice has come crashing down in a crisis of 
capitalist overproduction. There are too many autos to sell at a profit. 
There are too many houses to sell at a profit. There is too much steel 
to sell at a profit. And so on. It has led to the wave of layoffs, 
foreclosures, evictions, hunger and homelessness.

As a system of exploitation for profit, capitalism itself is at the 
bottom of the crisis. As the workers and the oppressed awake to demand 
their rights, the ultimate aim must be the destruction of capitalism and 
the erection of a system run for human need, not for profit. That system 
is socialism.

/Goldstein is the author of the recently published book “Low-Wage 
Capitalism: Colossus with Feet of Clay.” See lowwagecapitalism.com for 
information about the book and how to order it./

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http://www.workers.org/2009/us/jobs_0122/

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