Capitalism desperately needs this $700 billion bail out. The pressure of the working class and the lower middle class from below, even in an unorganized form, prevented them from getting the votes to get it through the house earlier this week. They are now stepping up their efforts.
They are using all their media and politicians to scare the working and middle classes. They are saying that unless this bail out is delivered then we will be in a depression and life will be total hell. Especially for working people. They are really doing this for us you see. It is no longer a bail out you see it is a rescue. They are changing the slant of their propaganda and stepping up its volume.
Then they are pulling their organized forces into action. Not only their parties, the Democrats and Republicans. But also their trade organizations. The Business Roundtable which represents the chief executives of the top 150 companies have mobilized. The American Bankers Association likewise. They are using their power to intimidate the working class through their influence over the media and also the influence they have over their workforces. They are also using their power to force the state to change its rules and their political parties to increase the bribes in the bail out package so they can get more votes. One way they are pressurizing the state is to get the Security and Exchange Commission and the Financial Accounting Standards Board to change the way that companies estimate the value of their holdings. They are now allowing companies to arbitrarily decide the value of their holdings instead of the value being decided by what the holdings can get in the market place. In this way they are intending to make bankrupt companies "solvent."So much for the market deciding all and so much for accounting standards. They are preparing the ground for an even greater collapse.
What we are seeing here is the capitalist class mobilizing as a class. As Marx explained society we live in a class society. The problem is the leaders of the working class do not accept this.
Where are the leaders of the working class in this struggle, where are our side in this propaganda and political class war. The ruling capitalist class have mobilized their forces. their class is in action and clear as to what it wants. But what about the organized working class, the trade unions. There is not a word out of the leaders of the trade unions except when they give the odd bleat in support of the capitalist bail out. The pressure from below of the working class and middle class stopped the bail out earlier this week. But there is no organization that is pulling this force together and organizing it into a mass organized conscious working class force for change and for its own program.
These leaders should be fighting for the all the financial institutions to be taken into public ownership under workers control and management. The rich and the capitalist class and their institutions by their failure have forfeited all right to run the economy or society. These trade union leaders should also be organizing a mass workers party that can take on the capitalist offensive and provide an alternative to the policies and organizations of big business.
The mood is there for change. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll showed that only 10% of Americans have a "great deal" or "quite a bit" of confidence in the financial industry compared with 36% who said so in 2,000. This mood must be built on. A working class and anti capitalist and democratic socialist alternative must be built.
Sean
John Monks, the leader of the European Trade Union Confederation had an article in the Financial Times today. It is a pathetic appeal to the Capitalists to rein in what he calls "Casino Capitalism". It could have been written by Hilary Clinton.
ReplyDeleteThe system is on the verge of collapse and should be receiving the knock out blow. Paulson himself said that if the bail out didn't work, "we have nothing else".
This is how bad the situation is for capitalism; they have "nothing else". It would undoubtedly collapse without the intervention of the working class who will have to borrow over one trillion dollars and pay it back with interest; they are very free with our money.
For those that think socialism is a dream I always ask them to imagine a peasant in France in 1760 being told that there's a new way, that he/she wouldn't have to be tied to that land; wouldn't have to fix the Lord's fences, fight their battles and give them their surplus produce, they could work for an employer for a period of time in the city and earn wages. They could be free.
The peasant may well have answered in cynically "that's ridiculous, a nice idea but it'll never work."