We Need a Working Class Program for the Economic Crisis

[dcsmart]

Written by The Editorial Board
Thursday, 02 April 2009
The economic crisis has now dragged on for months and there is no end in sight for U.S. workers. Months of “solutions” by both Republicans and Democrats have done absolutely nothing to revive the economy or stop the job losses, home foreclosures and bankruptcies, and still the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drag on. Trillions of dollars have been thrown into a financial black hole as corporate CEOs continue to make out like bandits on the public dime. The U.S. deficit is forecast to hit a mind-blowing $1.8 trillion this year, with projected deficits of an additional trillion dollars every year for the next decade. This would put the deficit at nearly 5 percent of GDP, a nearly intolerable drag on the economy. The danger of stagflation, a mix of rising prices and slowed economic growth, is inherent in the situation.

Worst of all, we workers, our children and grand children, will have to pay all of this debt back – with interest – and will have received nothing of any real substance in return. No single-payer universal health care, no free education for all, no guarantee of employment at a living wage with decent benefits and conditions, no rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, the inner cities, our crumbling roads, bridges and other infrastructure. In fact, this is a recipe for a permanent and continued worsening of our conditions of life.

A record 742,000 jobs were lost in March alone, on top of 706,000 lost in February. The whole of American society is being “retooled” as a result of this crisis. Millions of jobs are simply not coming back. Ever. Already, tent city shanty towns of the newly homeless have popped up in Fresno, California and a dozen other cities. This is reminiscent of the “Hoovervilles” during the Great Depression, as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.

The once mighty auto industry, which has been ruined by the greed and short-sightedness of the CEOs, is being made an example of, and once again, it is the workers who will pay the price. GM and Chrysler are receiving billions in public dollars, but only on condition that the United Auto Workers union effectively cease to exist as a tool to defend the workers’ interests. Obama has personally demanded more concessions from the union. As he put it: “We think we can have a successful U.S. auto industry. But it’s got to be one that’s realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge – at the other end – much more lean, mean and competitive than it currently is.”

In other words, UAW workers’ wages, conditions, benefits and job security are to be driven down to the level of non-union auto workers. Far from being a socialist solution, which would mean nationalization under workers’ democratic control at union wages and benefits, this kind of government intervention is exposes the myth of the “worker friendly” Democrats!
As for the scandal over the AIG bonuses, what did they expect when they gave public money to the same handful of greedy profiteers that speculated the company into the ground in the first place? The real aim of Obama and other officials’ “outrage” was to focus public anger on a handful of CEOs instead of on the true cause of the crisis.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner touched on the core truth of the situation when he said: “The market will not solve this” (while at the same time announcing billions more to bailout the banks). The fundamental reason these “solutions” haven’t worked is because they seek to resolve the crisis – which is at root a crisis of the capitalist system – within the limits of that very same system. It’s like trying to lift a manhole cover you’re standing on – it simply can’t be done.
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FULL ARTICLE
http://www.socialistappeal.org/content/view/701/69/


A Working Class Program for the Economic Crisis (PART 2)
http://www.socialistappeal.org/content/view/702/65/