The Worker, Vol. 35, Number 15
Further Redistribution of the Wealth in Favor of Big Capital
Joe Biden ran for President promising to build back a better post-covid economy that "works for everyone" by creating "5 million new technology and manufacturing jobs, so the future is made in America."
Indeed, even for the big names in the limelight of the two party monopoly, the growing wealth, luxury and leisure at the one pole of the capitalist society and the spread of unemployment, the growth of the proletariat and the worsening condition of the working people at the other pole are typically not possible to ignore.
This has certainly been the case over the last thirty years of pendulum swings between recessions and jobless recoveries. The constants are that workers need jobs but are regularly laid off, raw materials are available but remain unused, valuable productive forces such as factories are destroyed with each economic crisis, warehouses are increasingly overstocked with excess goods even while the masses of people find the very necessities of life harder to secure.
What is causing this breakdown in the economic life of society? Is it really a new development caused by a single disease as the capitalist politicians declare? And if a covid pandemic is to blame, what is the explanation for the widespread memories of breakdown prior to 2020?
No, the problem is that under capitalism the means of production (the tools created and used by humanity to produce food, shelter, etc.) are owned privately by a tiny percentage of the population. But the reality is that our country's modern means of production are social in character. They are the product of countless generations of humanity and can only be set in motion by the cooperative labor of tens of millions of workers. It is this social character of the productive forces which is the reason behind the vast productivity of our country. It is also the reason why the modern era is known as the era of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale.
And while collective labor of hundreds of millions of workers produces an abundance of the necessities of life, the very workers who produce these values are paid the lowest possible wages because the goal of the capitalist owners is to maximize profit. As this contradiction between the vast productive power of modern labor and the limited consuming power of the workers intensifies, the economy breaks down and recessions occur. The narrow motive of capitalism makes it unable to utilize the power of socialized labor to satisfy the material and cultural needs of the people.
However the two parties cannot go as far as to recognize this basic contradiction of capitalism publicly in their platforms or in any other manner. In the last presidential election the campaigns focused in the same vein which has become practically sacrosanct over the last several decades – the capitalist politicians debated policy positions to address “weak productivity growth” and the “weakening of the international competitive position of the U.S.” as the key “structural” problems.
Thus, when it came time for this year's annual debates over the redistribution of the national income, Biden and the Democrats once again proposed redistribution in favor of big capital.
As always, the mechanism behind federal appropriations bills consists in the government collecting a sizeable part of the population's incomes into the budget through taxes and then using that money as it sees fit. In the years before WWI, the U.S. government took into its budget from 5-10% of the national income but today it takes as much as 30-50%. This money is then used to pay interest on government debt, to pay public workers, and to purchase goods and services from the private sector.
The capitalist's current economic agenda emphasizes large amounts of deficit spending allegedly in order to "create jobs" through trillions of dollars of investment in technology and infrastructure. The budget in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress on November 5 increases the very high state of dependence of U.S. monopolies on government handouts to the tune of $1 trillion. This program represents the consensus of the capitalist class at the present time and is being popularized by the mass media as well as by business leaders, government commissions, economic think-tanks, etc., all across the country.
And what are the "arguments" in support of the agenda of rescuing large corporations from bankruptcy by supplying them with trillions of dollars collected in the form of taxes from the population?
The "arguments" are that more of the same “trickle down economics” which Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump signed off on would bring relief to the workers.
In fact, while government handouts to the rich intensify the socialization of production, they do nothing to change the private capitalist appropriation. The outcome is that the basic contradiction of capitalism – that between social production and private capitalist appropriation of its results – is exacerbated.
And indeed, during the last 40 years, the big capitalists, with the support of the government, slashed away at the wages and standard of living of the masses. The misleaders of the unions gave wage concessions to the big corporations to help increase their “competitiveness.” New tax laws gave the big corporations huge incentives to accumulate more investment funds. Spending on social programs was cut past the bone. Neither relief nor the promised "prosperity" trickled down. The direction for the masses of people is sharply increased suffering, exploitation and poverty.
In short, this year's budget is a program for increasing the accumulation of capital and increasing profit margins. It is a continuation of the ongoing economic program for stepping up the anti-social offensive of the big capitalists against the well-being of the American people by speeding up the rate of accumulation of capital – through the usual means of intensifying the exploitation of those employed in production and shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the entire working class.
It goes without saying that the Republicans in Congress had nothing to offer but more "trickle down" economic proposals as their "official opposition" to Biden's agenda. In between engaging in the standard two party mud slinging histrionics, the Republicans spent the last few months arguing over the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are parties of the capitalist class. In one form or another, in one way or another, all of the representatives are advocating that the people accept yet more sacrifice so as to “revive American capitalism” and increase the profits of the corporations and billionaires.
The anti-social offensive of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is an important and favorable front for advancing the political struggle to expose and isolate the capitalist parties, and to unite the class conscious workers and progressive activists into the great work of building the political party of the working class.
In the face of the anti-social offensive of the capitalist class we have no choice but to be political.
Politics is the concentrated expression of the struggle between classes – of the struggle between the rich and the poor, between the capitalists and the workers. Through the political struggle each class strives to control the government in order to secure its economic and other aims. As long as American politics and American government are controlled by the Democrats and Republicans, our entire society will remain under the thumb of the big corporations. And it is precisely these monopolies which are leading the society and the masses of people to ruin.
To win and guarantee the fundamental rights of the people, the workers must gain political power. This struggle advances with the workers forming their own mass political party; it advances when we stand up for the program, the viewpoint and the interests of the workers; it advances when we organize ourselves as an independent force in the course of the struggles to defend our rights.
The countless workers and progressive people who are filled with contempt for the capitalist class and the capitalist politicians must be drawn into the work of denouncing the Republicans and Democrats and standing up for the revolutionary aspirations and policy of the working class; those who oppose the capitalists but claim that “there is no alternative” must see that it is the workers themselves who must create and build the alternative. A vital part of this work is the consistent exposure of revisionism and opportunism which constitute parties of capitalism, parties trying to prevent the inevitable mass breakaway from the Democrats and Republicans. As for the opportunist parties of the so-called “left” wing which refuse to take up the tasks presented by the urgent necessity for organized independent working class politics, they must be denounced as the political agents of the capitalist class that they are.
The leadership expressed through the independent political program of the working class shows that the practical solution to the grave economic problems is neither complicated nor difficult. The question that confronts us is: the economy for whom? for the capitalists or the workers. The question is not a lack of material goods and wealth but rather to whom does it go ... to the capitalists in the form of higher and higher profits or to the workers.
Indeed, even for the big names in the limelight of the two party monopoly, the growing wealth, luxury and leisure at the one pole of the capitalist society and the spread of unemployment, the growth of the proletariat and the worsening condition of the working people at the other pole are typically not possible to ignore.
This has certainly been the case over the last thirty years of pendulum swings between recessions and jobless recoveries. The constants are that workers need jobs but are regularly laid off, raw materials are available but remain unused, valuable productive forces such as factories are destroyed with each economic crisis, warehouses are increasingly overstocked with excess goods even while the masses of people find the very necessities of life harder to secure.
What is causing this breakdown in the economic life of society? Is it really a new development caused by a single disease as the capitalist politicians declare? And if a covid pandemic is to blame, what is the explanation for the widespread memories of breakdown prior to 2020?
No, the problem is that under capitalism the means of production (the tools created and used by humanity to produce food, shelter, etc.) are owned privately by a tiny percentage of the population. But the reality is that our country's modern means of production are social in character. They are the product of countless generations of humanity and can only be set in motion by the cooperative labor of tens of millions of workers. It is this social character of the productive forces which is the reason behind the vast productivity of our country. It is also the reason why the modern era is known as the era of the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale.
And while collective labor of hundreds of millions of workers produces an abundance of the necessities of life, the very workers who produce these values are paid the lowest possible wages because the goal of the capitalist owners is to maximize profit. As this contradiction between the vast productive power of modern labor and the limited consuming power of the workers intensifies, the economy breaks down and recessions occur. The narrow motive of capitalism makes it unable to utilize the power of socialized labor to satisfy the material and cultural needs of the people.
However the two parties cannot go as far as to recognize this basic contradiction of capitalism publicly in their platforms or in any other manner. In the last presidential election the campaigns focused in the same vein which has become practically sacrosanct over the last several decades – the capitalist politicians debated policy positions to address “weak productivity growth” and the “weakening of the international competitive position of the U.S.” as the key “structural” problems.
Thus, when it came time for this year's annual debates over the redistribution of the national income, Biden and the Democrats once again proposed redistribution in favor of big capital.
As always, the mechanism behind federal appropriations bills consists in the government collecting a sizeable part of the population's incomes into the budget through taxes and then using that money as it sees fit. In the years before WWI, the U.S. government took into its budget from 5-10% of the national income but today it takes as much as 30-50%. This money is then used to pay interest on government debt, to pay public workers, and to purchase goods and services from the private sector.
The capitalist's current economic agenda emphasizes large amounts of deficit spending allegedly in order to "create jobs" through trillions of dollars of investment in technology and infrastructure. The budget in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed by Congress on November 5 increases the very high state of dependence of U.S. monopolies on government handouts to the tune of $1 trillion. This program represents the consensus of the capitalist class at the present time and is being popularized by the mass media as well as by business leaders, government commissions, economic think-tanks, etc., all across the country.
And what are the "arguments" in support of the agenda of rescuing large corporations from bankruptcy by supplying them with trillions of dollars collected in the form of taxes from the population?
The "arguments" are that more of the same “trickle down economics” which Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump signed off on would bring relief to the workers.
In fact, while government handouts to the rich intensify the socialization of production, they do nothing to change the private capitalist appropriation. The outcome is that the basic contradiction of capitalism – that between social production and private capitalist appropriation of its results – is exacerbated.
And indeed, during the last 40 years, the big capitalists, with the support of the government, slashed away at the wages and standard of living of the masses. The misleaders of the unions gave wage concessions to the big corporations to help increase their “competitiveness.” New tax laws gave the big corporations huge incentives to accumulate more investment funds. Spending on social programs was cut past the bone. Neither relief nor the promised "prosperity" trickled down. The direction for the masses of people is sharply increased suffering, exploitation and poverty.
In short, this year's budget is a program for increasing the accumulation of capital and increasing profit margins. It is a continuation of the ongoing economic program for stepping up the anti-social offensive of the big capitalists against the well-being of the American people by speeding up the rate of accumulation of capital – through the usual means of intensifying the exploitation of those employed in production and shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the entire working class.
It goes without saying that the Republicans in Congress had nothing to offer but more "trickle down" economic proposals as their "official opposition" to Biden's agenda. In between engaging in the standard two party mud slinging histrionics, the Republicans spent the last few months arguing over the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's. Both the Republican and Democratic parties are parties of the capitalist class. In one form or another, in one way or another, all of the representatives are advocating that the people accept yet more sacrifice so as to “revive American capitalism” and increase the profits of the corporations and billionaires.
The anti-social offensive of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is an important and favorable front for advancing the political struggle to expose and isolate the capitalist parties, and to unite the class conscious workers and progressive activists into the great work of building the political party of the working class.
In the face of the anti-social offensive of the capitalist class we have no choice but to be political.
Politics is the concentrated expression of the struggle between classes – of the struggle between the rich and the poor, between the capitalists and the workers. Through the political struggle each class strives to control the government in order to secure its economic and other aims. As long as American politics and American government are controlled by the Democrats and Republicans, our entire society will remain under the thumb of the big corporations. And it is precisely these monopolies which are leading the society and the masses of people to ruin.
To win and guarantee the fundamental rights of the people, the workers must gain political power. This struggle advances with the workers forming their own mass political party; it advances when we stand up for the program, the viewpoint and the interests of the workers; it advances when we organize ourselves as an independent force in the course of the struggles to defend our rights.
The countless workers and progressive people who are filled with contempt for the capitalist class and the capitalist politicians must be drawn into the work of denouncing the Republicans and Democrats and standing up for the revolutionary aspirations and policy of the working class; those who oppose the capitalists but claim that “there is no alternative” must see that it is the workers themselves who must create and build the alternative. A vital part of this work is the consistent exposure of revisionism and opportunism which constitute parties of capitalism, parties trying to prevent the inevitable mass breakaway from the Democrats and Republicans. As for the opportunist parties of the so-called “left” wing which refuse to take up the tasks presented by the urgent necessity for organized independent working class politics, they must be denounced as the political agents of the capitalist class that they are.
The leadership expressed through the independent political program of the working class shows that the practical solution to the grave economic problems is neither complicated nor difficult. The question that confronts us is: the economy for whom? for the capitalists or the workers. The question is not a lack of material goods and wealth but rather to whom does it go ... to the capitalists in the form of higher and higher profits or to the workers.