[PEN-L:11058] Capitalism Cannot Provide For The People: Quebec Workers Must Lead! Stop Paying The Rich! Increase Funding For Social Programs!

["Shawgi A. Tell" <tell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At the close of the spring session of the Quebec National Assembly on
June 20, Premier Bouchard boasted that "100,000 jobs have been created
since July 1996."

But Premier Bouchard said nothing about the number of jobs destroyed
in the same period, nor about the continuing high levels of
unemployment in Quebec-levels which have been on the rise for decades,
nor about the increasing poverty of the people, nor about the
deterioration of their health and well-being.

Nor did he acknowledge that the state was obliged to give the rich
$2.2 billion to "create" these jobs. In point of fact, what the
reality definitively and indisputably shows is that the current social
system, the capitalist system, cannot provide for the people of
Quebec.

Bouchard also boasted about "taming the deficit monster." "Thanks to
the collective efforts realized this yar," he declared, "we can
confidently confirm that the Quebec deficit will be eliminated in 21
months."

Bouchard's is a very strange notion of "collective effort" indeed. The
society can be described as one collective. Within it there is a
complexity of interests. There are the interests of the individual
members of society. There are the general interests of the society.
There are the interests of the collectives which make up the whole
collectivity of the society, such as the workers, the women, the
youth. Bouchard's notion of a "collective effort" is one where the
whole society has to make an effort and the financial oligarchy reaps
all the rewards.

It is one where the government which claims to represent the
collective, that is the society as a whole, hands over $5 billion to
the financial oligarchy in the form of debt servicing, $2.2 billion to
"create jobs," and billions more in other forms as well. All the
while, it is slashing spending on health care, education and other
social programs and threatens decrees to force the public sector
workers to take wage cuts.

Bouchard tried to paint a rosy picture because he wants to justify the
continuation of his program to pay the rich, but he cannot camouflage
the reality of the situation. As is the case elsewhere in the country,
this program of paying the rich is the Achilles heel of the economy,
as it only expands to the extent that the rich are paid, literally on
the basis of exacting tribute from the people. Satisfying the
increasing material and cultural needs of the people never enters the
equation, except as a future prospect invoked merely to fool them.

Bouchard's "confident confirmation" that the deficit will be
eliminated in 21 months is a warning to the working class and people
that they can only expect more of the same. A reversal of this
offensive is urgently needed and for this the workers and broad masses
of the people need to put forward the pro-social program to Stop
Paying the Rich Increase Funding for Social Programs. Through this
economic and political program, the working class puts forward its
starting point for the harmonization of the individual interests of
the members of society with those of the collective, and the
collective interests with the general interests of the society. It is
the program for the working class to lead a collective effort of the
people to bring an end to the capitalism system and create a new and
modern society which will provide for the people.

		CPC(M-L)

Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
tell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx