As we are told by all the powerful forces in society, the priest, the politician, the university professors, and the Union hierarchy that we have to make sacrifices, that we are “in hard economic times”, we should be thankful to the Wall Street Journal for dispelling the idea that there is no money in society and for showing us where a good source of it is.
“There is a cash crisis in corporate America”, writes Jason Zweig in this weekend’s WSJ, “although it comes not from a shortage of the stuff.” Wow, that’s news to a few million people who have lost homes, jobs, and, like a person I spoke to yesterday who was about to retire, $40,000 of their retirement savings.
Microsoft alone “packed away” $9 billion or $100 million a day in the first quarter of this year. It turns out that much of this is from foreign earnings (ripping off the workers of China, Bangladesh, Vietnam etc.) that they keep abroad so they don’t have to pay the 35% tax on it. Perhaps this will help Bill Gates get to number one on the world’s richest list ahead of rivals Carlos Slim and Warren Buffet.
“Hundreds of billions in cash remain available---and idle”, Zweig continues. "Idle" cash to a capitalist is money that is not generating more money, is not reproducing itself. (See previous blog) Zweig stresses, “cash is piling up much faster than most industrial giants can possibly find a prudent use for it.” This stresses the class views of society. A “prudent use” of money in a worker’s mind would be to build schools, hospitals public transportation or invest it in ways that meets human needs, including jobs. But capitalists don’t invest to produce things we need (use values); that is secondary. They invest in a rapacious struggle for profits.
Marx put it so beautifully:
“Use values must therefore never be looked upon as the real aim of the capitalist; neither must the profit on any single transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what he aims at. This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange value, is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The never ending augmentation of exchange value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh in to circulation."
“Shareholder’s dividend income is taxed at historically low rates” says one financial analyst adding that “Companies are basically earning more than they’ve ever made before.” This is more evidence of ample resources available to us.
This is all welcome news for workers as it demolishes the propaganda we hear every day that there are no alternatives to cuts in wages, benefits and social services. Many thanks to the Wall Street Journal for helping dispel this myth and showing us where we have to go to find the resources necessary for a decent life for all.
I think that in many ways we understand all this. Work is the great educator because it is here, at the point of production, where the great class conflict lies; we know we are exploited. Knowing what to do about it, how to rid ourselves of this madness is another issue. That is why the study of our own history, the history of class struggle, as well as the great revolutionaries and economists of the past is so important. For me, grasping a basic understanding of the Russian Revolution is paramount as it was the first and only socialist revolution. It's deterioration is also important to understand.
A co-worker, a Janitor once told me that he new nothing about economics. "How can that be so?" I replied. "You pay rent, you and your partner manage a family, raise children and buy groceries; you are an economist." This is not to reject theory, or books. But as Marx wrote in a letter to a friend:
“Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs.” Theory divorced from practice is empty.
Now it’s our responsibility to figure out how to appropriate these resources that exist and use them to benefit society as a whole.
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