Capitalism –for and against workers
...So, how “polarised” are we?
Even as I suspect that my typical economically–challenged working class employees, have little time to consider intellectually/analytically, the profundities of systems, theories and ideologies, as they fight to survive daily, I still share with them these thoughts on (practical) capitalism and its challenges these days.
And as you excuse that long cumbersome sentence above, I now indicate that my aim, on this Workers’ Special Day, is to have them spare a thought about the one economic system which has governed their lives and livelihood.
No matter what recent Constitutions aspired to; no matter how “co-operative” or “socialist” our leaders, ideologues and economists aspired to be and to confront “capitalism”, the Western–friendly phenomenon dominated lives. The young and today’s working – class – must use some time to find out why this system, flawed and subject to crises for decades, still predominates. Over the decades who uses it. Best – for good or for greed?
Why Capitalism?
A layman’s guide or manual, stripped of the more academic, technical jargon, will reveals that, most simply put, capital is the original sum, the wealth – in some form – which is invested to produce even more. Capital then used by labour results in more capital. Hopefully. But too often, Capitalists and their system reside just amongst a few (private) individuals or groups and exclude the majority (labour) which is used to produce the commodities, the services and surpluses. Inherent contentiousness easily arises between capital and labour.
But to me, frankly speaking, capitalism thrives because mankind tends to be a “me-first” selfish group, beginning with the individual who sees nothing really wrong with self-preservation and as much profit for self and inner circle – before any sharing with workers, co-operatives or any “common good”. Capital accumulation is the primary pastime; the driving force even among Socialists, Christians, Muslims or Saints who are in “business”.
Even students of Karl Marx agree that capitalism generates wealth like no other system. But it is the distribution of that wealth produced; the selfish, corrupt and greedy nature of the various elites it spawns, which is its contradictory weakness. To me also, the alternatives to Capitalism too frequently fail the working – class who look at the wealth it generates even as they are made to be mere consumers and not owners. Mankind’s failure has been the inability – or refusal to put capitalism in the service of the world’s workers.
Exploiting capitalism, which exploits?
Many months ago I came across the thoughts of a rabid anti-capitalist, American Charles Sullivan. On this Workers’ Day spare some time to study a few paragraphs of his position. Here goes:
“People must understand that the world is being run by a very small clique of the wealthiest people. It is run to accrue wealth to them by exploiting the rest of us.
Their intention is to rule the world through the establishment of the New World Order, and overt militarization. They are a tiny fraction of one percent of the global population, and they intend to lord power over all and to subjugate.
The Plutocratic elite have enormous wealth, and they have access to tech weapons with the awesome power to destroy. They are driven by insensate greed and lust for power. They are incredibly selfish and violent people, and they want it all.
On the other hand, we have superior numbers; well over 99.9% of the population.
Ours’ is a just cause, theirs is not. We are builders; they are destroyers. But we must be willing to struggle; we must organize and mobilize, and forge a viable global solidarity movement”.
“It makes no difference if you are a working class conservative or a progressive, Democrat or Republican. In the capital system the working class is parasitized by those at the top. So you can see that workers must organize as a class against The New World Order-corporate globalization.
Corporate Globalization must be met with global worker solidarity. Otherwise, jobs will continue to be outsourced as capital seeks the cheapest labor with the least amount of regulation. The result is that corporate profits will continue to rise, more jobs will be outsourced, worker will compete against worker in the new world economy, and wages will be driven down. And that is exactly what has been happening, even as productivity has sharply increased.”
“The Wobblies used to say, `The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.’ They also stated, `An injury to one is an injury to all.’ That is a credo that all working people should live by. Exorbitant CEO salaries and huge corporate profits come at the expense of the working class. Billions of tax-payer dollars are annually doled out in the form of corporate welfare to companies like Wal-Mart, while the poor are neglected and are forced to work for subsistence wages. Since capital is privately owned, nearly all of the wealth remains at the top of the economic food chain. Every one below is left to fend for themselves.
In essence, this is the trickle down economics popularized by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Thus, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I call it ‘predatory capitalism.’”
“What is to be done?”
But do the workers of the world unite? Those groups which tried to do so through “international trade unions” had Communist/Socialist leanings (naturally?), were dubbed political even as the workers of the world trekked, or were lured, to Capitalist America. Workers left their homeland economies to generate America’s wealth because they saw a swifter chance, they believed of sharing in that wealth.
Venezuelan Hugo Chavez has spearheaded a new grouping of Latin American nations. It is his “Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of our America (ALBA)”.
In putting down the recent Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, ALBA is calling for the complete rejection of Capitalism. ALBA warns:
“Capitalism is destroying humanity and the planet. What we are living through is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural character and just one more cyclical crisis. Those who think that this crisis will be resolved with an injection of fiscal money and with some regulatory measures are very mistaken.
The financial system is in crisis because it is quoting the value of financial paper at six times the real value of goods and services being produced in the world. This is not a “failure of the regulation of the system” but rather a fundamental part of the capitalist system that speculates with all goods and values in the pursuit of obtaining the maximum amount of profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has created 100 million more starving people and more than 50 million new unemployed people, and these figures are tending to increasing.”
“Capitalism has provoked an ecological crisis by subordinating the necessary conditions for life on this planet to the domination of the market and profit. Each year, the world consumes a third more than what the planet is capable of regenerating. At this rate of wastage by the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets by the year 2030”.
ALBA suggests the establishment of “grand national companies to satisfy, the fundamental necessities of our peoples” and implementing fundamental mechanism to arrest the “unrestrained competition” in international trade.
Think on these matters, dear union leaders; inform and teach your worker/members to appreciate their challenges. Don’t waste today, which ever group you embrace.
“Polarised…?”
Postponed to next Friday, this issue. Okay, so we don’t have to be as violently fragmented as the folks in Iraq, Ireland, Rwanda, Kashmir or Mississippi to be polarized? Especially if hatreds, stereotypes and discrimination are programmed into our psyches from infancy?
Let’s explore this “polarization” in the homeland next Friday.
Until…..
*1) The USA is supporting an IMF overhaul!!
*2) “Militarism is the iron fist of Capitalism”. War is a racket – and guess who profits?
*3) The Sunday Chronicle account of Robert Corbin’s illness carried 18 paragraphs. Thirteen (13) were about Corbin and his problems within his party!
*4) Who were the Three J’S of local trade unionism and politics?
*5) Solidarity for-never?
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Til Next Week!
Comments?
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