First the banks now auto

First it was the financial institutions that capitalism has bankrupted. Now it is the auto industry. The multi millionaire swindlers of Wall Street who have been condemning the state and insisting it keep out of its business suddenly are on their knees cap in hand to Washington asking to be bailed out. And they are in the process of getting their $850 billion. 

We opposed this. Our alternative instead was to nationalize all the financial institutions. This means take them out of private hands and placing them in a publicly owned institution. The only compensation that would be paid would be on the basis of proven need. that is if a working class person had some shares in the privately owned institutions and that is all they had to live on they would be compensated. Proven need would be decided by democratically elected committees of working people. 

The nationalized institution would not be run by people from the financial industry. They have shown they cannot run it.  It would be run by elected representatives of the working class. From the workers who would be unionized in the industry, from the working class as a whole and from holders of household mortgages. This would mean the new nationalized institution would be run in working peoples interests not in the interests of private capital and profit. 

The capital that would be in this institution would be used to solve the crisis in the housing industry but also would be used to invest in schools, hospitals, infrastructure, areas that would be good for the interests of the majority not squandered and speculated away as has been done by the private owners of the financial sector up to now. Decisions on this would be taken by the democratically elected workers' leadership of the new institution and the working class in generaL. 

Now we come to the auto industry. There are over three million people involved. And just as capitalism ran the financial institutions into the ground and bankrupted them so the owners of auto and capitalism has bankrupted the auto industry. The private owners for years spent millions in Washington  bribing politicians not to pass laws that would have made their automobiles more fuel efficient. Now they are back at Washington again but this time to plead for $50 billion in a bail out because they cannot compete with fuel efficient cars. 

We have the same position on the auto industry as the financial institutions. We opposed the bail out there, instead we demanded the nationalization under workers' control and management of the financial industry. We also demand the nationalization under workers control and management of auto, including all the auto suppliers and distribution networks. This nationalized auto industry would be run under workers control and management, there would also be compensation only on the basis of proven need. 

If there is a bail out the conditions will be massive lay offs, work speed up and cuts in benefits and pensions. The owners and the profit system have bankrupted the auto industry. They have lost all right to run it. Nationalize it under workers control and management with compensation on the basis of proven need. In alliance with the other sectors of the transport industry such as rail and air and taking into account the development of a sustainable economy and protection of the environment and the need to move immediately to fuel efficient cars and to move quickly to more mass transport then the problems can be solved and workers jobs and living standards protected. 

Sean