The best source for where we’re headed is the capitalists themselves.

by: Richard Mellor
AFSCME Local 444 retired
1-21-07

One does not need a crystal ball to see into the future; there is a much more accurate way of forecasting events. I say forecasting because nothing is certain; many factors enter the picture when trying to determine what lies ahead. But the class that rules talks to each other; they discuss how society is operating and how they can protect their class interests in it. They discuss the system that they govern in the pages of their serious journals and having their hands on the purse strings and the levers of the apparatus, they influence events.

Addressing his friends on the Senate budget committee Ben Berbanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, described the present state of economic affairs in the US as “the calm before the storm”. The strategists of capital are concerned about the many “storms” that are brewing in US society. There is the massive debt both public and private with the US having to borrow a couple billion dollars a day just to keep functioning at its present level. Recent developments in the currency markets are becoming a concern as some lenders are shifting funds to the Euro.

Then there is the Iraq war that is a major drain on the US treasury, not to mention the catastrophic affect it is having on a small but significant section of the US population, military families. Domestically, it is these young men and women along with their families that are bearing the brunt of the predatory wars that US capitalism is conducting for control of the world’s resources and markets. Already the US has been defeated in Iraq; having the weaponry to destroy a country is one thing, occupying it is another. The invasion has strengthened both Syria and Iran in this region threatening an all out civil war between Sunni regimes that dominate the theocracies of the region and the minority Shia.

Numerous mouthpieces of big business such as Lawrence Summers are reminding their class of the dangers that the continued attacks on the living standards of US workers might unleash, referring to those of us who are not yet on the bottom of the economic ladder as the “anxious middle.” Driven by an insatiable thirst for profits and the competitive environment that the integration of the world economy creates, US capitalism is forced to increase the war on workers at home. Pensions and benefits won by workers during the boom that followed the Second World War have been savaged. In the recent period workers in auto, transportation (primarily airlines) and other sectors such as steel, have had their benefits shredded leaving fewer jobs and a dismal future for the next generations. The pensions of public sector workers are on the chopping block next.

Bernanke wants something done and fast as the US economy will be facing the retirement of the baby boomers, some 78 million of them over the next period. Reforms to reduce costs should have begun “ten years ago” Bernanke tells the corporate politicians. “Reform” is a carefully chosen term as “cuts” might be taken to mean cuts in social spending which is what the reforms actually are. It is not likely Bernanke will recommend the rich pay for this crisis of their own making. The Social Security trust fund is actually solvent but the guardians of the national treasury have borrowed it to pay for other programs.

“Meaningful action” must be taken, the Fed Chairmen tells the committee; either increased funding for entitlement programs or reduced benefits. Bernanke refused to recommend any “reforms” to the system but did remind his friends that “experts” had suggested raising the retirement age, increasing payroll taxes or the amount of income subject to payroll taxes. Reflecting his deep feelings of goodwill and solidarity with older working class men and women, Bernanke advised the corporate politicians that they should “make the labor market as accommodating as possible to older people who wish to continue working.” That 70 year old widow you see at the Macy’s sales counter just loves being there for the personal enjoyment the job brings; she is not one of the “experts” that Bernanke looks to for advice. Representatives of the capitalist class like Bernanke always attribute the conditions of the working class to “free choice.” The 21 year olds that have perished or been maimed in Iraq just “chose” to be there. The women in the factories of Bangladesh, Vietnam or China are simply “willing”, yes, “willing” as opposed to workers in the US, to work 18 hours a day for nothing.

The capitalist class has a reason to be concerned, they are aware of the militant history of the working class in the U.S.; they are aware of the civil rights movement and the factory occupations of the thirties. Given the capitulation of the heads of organized labor to this capitalist offensive, the coming storms will be particularly violent. The US working class will fight back. There will be much confusion as nationalism, racism and other forms of division gain a stronger foothold within the working class. These divisions placed on the back burner to a certain extent by the capitalist class and their media will be fostered in order to weaken the resistance of working people to this offensive. But history shows that there is strong tendency for workers to seek class unity and overcome social divisions during heightened periods of struggle, and the coming storm will be no exception as new independent organizations arise and present ones are transformed as the movement finds its feet.

US workers work on average two months a year or more than workers in other industrial countries. The fact that the retirement age is being increased and not decreased is a very clear indication of where we are headed. The same goes for the likes of Germany or France where similar “reforms” are under way. German post war capitalism and the living standards gained by workers there is about the best capitalism has to offer and it is headed in reverse. It is important we pay attention to what the strategists of capital say to each other in their more serious journals, not what they say to us through the mass media, the pulpit, the universities or what is brought to us by the heads of organized labor. We should trust our class instincts.

The benefits that have been taken back in the last 25 years were won by workers through direct action: by relying on our own strength and our own organization. In the US we have no party of our own. Pelosi, the multi-millionaire born into money and married into more, will not solve the crisis that we face in our every day lives nor the crisis of the environment that threatens to destroy the planet; she and her party is part of the problem.

We had best take heed of what some New England laborers told their class 150 years ago. They were not “labor educators” like those at the universities today who advise the union officials, and the message applies not only in regards to the workplace but also the political sphere, the employers’ political parties like the Democrats.

"Brethren we conjure you...not to believe a word of what is being said about your interests and those of your employers being the same. Your interests and theirs are in a nature of things, hostile and irreconcilable. Then do not look to them for relief...Our salvation must, through the blessing of God, come from ourselves. It is useless to expect it from those whom our labors enrich." (1)

Capitalism is a ferocious and competitive system. It is this social organization, not the personal failings of this or that individual that is at the root of poverty, wars and social crisis. Capitalism, emerging from the womb of feudalism, took the progressive step of socializing production. But it is not enough to simply struggle to defend ourselves and the planet from the ravages of this system that can no longer provide even the basic needs of most of the world’s people. We have to have an alternative.

The alternative to the anarchy of the market is a democratic socialist federation of states where the dominant productive forces, what we produce and how it is distributed, is owned and managed collectively by the working class. As long as the productive forces and the wealth labor produces are in private hands, the continued slide into economic and environmental disaster with all the tragedy that this entails cannot be reversed.

(1) 1840's appeal from New England laborers to their fellows to abandon the idea that the employers/capitalists would solve working people's problems. Philip Foner History of the Labor Movement (USA) Vol. 1 p192