On the news last night they talked of the $800 billion stimulus package that we are borrowing in order for us to be able to buy things; this comes on top of the other $850 billion they gave to their banker friends to save their system from collapse. They are worried because to buy things we normally have to borrow a down payment or some portion of the item, although this past bubble had a lot to do with the availability of money and its low cost.
The securities industry, the industry where they buy and sell debt, is in a fix because there is not enough consumer activity and there is not enough "affordable" credit the newscaster went on. Then an article I read complained about the same thing basically; that the employer's were not paying enough wages so consumers weren't able to spend.
But why don't the employer's pay enough wages to buy the products that come out of their establishments? Why do we have to borrow money to buy things? You would think it would benefit the employer's to avoid this problem
But they have no choice in the matter, it is a social issue. It's pretty obvious to most of us that their profit comes out of hiring us in some way. They don't pay us wages that are not enough to buy the products we make because they don't like us or because they're greedy in the abstract; in other words, the reason is not found in the lack of decency or bad character on the part of the individual. It is ingrained in the system.
Wealth in a capitalist economy is accumulated through the Labor process. The capitalist class pays the workers less in wages than they produce in value and the surplus value created in this process is the source of their profit; it is also the source of all sorts of other problems, war, hunger, the colonization of other nations.
In other words, wealth comes from the unpaid Labor of the working class. This great deal for the owners of capital is enforced through the state apparatus they control and is perpetuated in the minds of people through the means of communication that they own, the media, the education system, the pulpit etc. The Union leaders also echo these same ideas as they have the same view of the world as the employers.
The old adage, "a fair days pay for a fair days work" a saying that the capitalists made up, is an impossibility and the saying is an attempt to confuse us and deter us from struggling for higher wages just as the false idea that wages cause prices increases does; it is one of their ideological weapons. The intention is to convince us that they pay us 8 hours pay for 8 hours work and make money by charging more for the product in the marketplace, but this is impossible as an economy cannot work this way, wealth cannot be generated this way. The commodity that they sell contains within it Labor they have paid for and Labor they haven't and in order to free this trapped wealth, this "surplus value" in there they have to make the sale; that's why we are encouraged every minute of every day to buy the product; there's a gem in there.
Our wages come from an accumulated pool of capital or dead Labor. Whether they have it or borrow it to make payroll doesn't change this. It's source is previous unpaid Labor. We are being paid with our own money.
Why this is so important to me as an activist and was so important in the 25 years I spent as a Union shop steward of one sort or another, is that understanding it grounds me in times of difficulty. In a world of hostile and alien ideas (class alien that is) it is always in my mind that this is how wealth is created. I used to ask guys at work occasionally if it would be OK if I gave them $15 for a $20 bill and they always said no of course, its an unfair exchange. "Exactly" I would answer, you wouldn't do that unless you were coerced in some way and that is what the owner of capital, the employer does, coerce you in to exchanging the use of your life activity for a period of time and paying you in money less than what the use of this life activity produces in value.
I used to say to myself, "That damn Marx" when I felt like I wanted to seek an easier road than revolution or if I just wanted to step outside of it all either in to boredom or some drunken oblivion were some of us end up. Religion is another haven for the tired. "Maybe capitalism can be made nice" I might think. But theft is theft. It's like I used to tell the guys at work, "How can you have harmony between a thief and their victim, a prostitute and a pimp?" One lives of the Labor of another.
Obama says yesterday on announcing the stimulus package that in addition there will be "some serious belt tightening ahead" he will not discriminate between "friends and foes" we all have to sacrifice to balance the budget. This is a budget that has tripled or so over the last few months.
Who for one minute thinks a big business politician will make his or her "friends" suffer as much as you and I? When we "cheat" the boss at work by adding an extra hour to the timesheet or taking an extra five minutes break, worker's (the best of us) don't snitch on each other, we take care of each other; in our gut we know we are getting "our own back". Class consciousness hasn't gone away. Among Obama's friends are Warren Buffet, Paul Volcker, and other billionaires. They take care of each other. They will attempt to make us pay for this crisis of theirs in the form of more taxes and decreased living standards. As always it will be the poor, the infirm and the least organized among us who will suffer most.
The last story I saw on the news was about the huge increases in lines at food kitchens and they talked of a farm in Colorado that offered people to come and pick excess food that they had on hundreds of acres (unable to sell it no doubt), an act that the newscaster called kindness. They expected a few thousand but 40,000 people turned up.
At the root of all the problems that exist in today's world from the environment to hunger and disease, is this relationship between the owner of capital and those whose Labor power allows this accumulation of capital.
These problems will not go away unless this relationship does and workers control the Labor process and the surplus value created by our collective Labor becomes collectively owned and its use decided by all of us. But we have to be armed ideologically to accomplish this transformation and Marx is invaluable in that he explains how the present system works and gave some ideas about how it we can change it. But as well as being armed we have to act; theory is worthless without practice.
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