Richard Mellor
The speaker in the video is right of course. But a couple of points. The US companies that will be forced to pay more for products from China and other countries, will try to pass those costs on to the US consumer. In any situation when production costs go up and/or profits decline, the owners of capital or the company or corporation, will try to offset that by charging more for the product.
But the consumer is not a robot. Take myself and many of my friends. I have cut down eating out considerably. Eating out has become very expensive for US workers. Not all, but a significant number of us. So some companies may or may not be able to raise prices. If they can't; the company will have to eat it.
The bosses have a few options then; they can tighten their belts like they are always asking us to do when profits take a hit, or they might have to lay off workers which will exacerbate the problem even further. The owners of capital, the boss, would raise prices whenever they wanted some extra cash to buy that bigger yacht or for a choice investment if they could do that, but they can't. The market will determine whether they can or not.
As far as producing products here in the US, there is no way US manufacturers will give up the deal they have in Asia for example in order to pay US workers about ten times as much with labor rights.
During the 90's when labor power was in short supply, fast food restaurant owners were paying above minimum wage and that was entirely market driven. Even under these good conditions the moribund pro-market trade union leaders did nothing, it was all a gift from market conditions, fast food bosses were forced to lure workers with higher wages.
Trump, this serial sexual predator, an accident of history, a product of a dying system of production, is all bluster. But as one commentator pointed out, savvy enough to make promises that are impossible to keep and then blame everyone else for the failure. Then he says, I kept my promise; they......etc. etc.
I had to face some criticism from some friends when I tried to call for calm that we are not at the end of the world here. We are not at WW3 and so on. I have not said we shouldn't be concerned. But Trump is not going to get it all his own way even among the lunatics that have taken over the asylum. The US working class never gave him an electoral mandate or any US president an electoral mandate for that matter and will not sit idly by as the Neo-fascists, Christian nationalists, Zionists, White Supermacists, evangelical religious nutters, and so on, attempt to drive us back two centuries.
We are in early days. Yesterday thousand of Angelinos took to the streets and shut down CA 101 protesting Trump's draconian immigration and deportation laws. 40% of California's population is of Mexican descent. Sure, they will get heavy handed in some areas, but there will be some severe pushback as time goes on. Workers, researchers at the NIH have demanded negotiations on some of Trumps harmful cuts to research that will affect health of the American people. They are UAW members and say they have a right to bargain.
As the assault on workers domestically heats up people will be forced to take action and when the normal avenues are closed to us, the US workers have taken to the streets, occupied workplaces, factories, schools and so on. And despite the failure to protect us over decades, organised workers will also turn to the traditional union movement initially at least ; this will likely result in some internal turmoil.
Working class history has been driven backward in to our subconscious almost, with the help of the trade union hierarchy, but it has not disappeared. In the last analysis consciousness has a material base and with their backs against the wall, people will be forced to act. I'm not saying it will be pretty, but I am not in doomsday mode by any means.
Another term with the Democrats workers know will not stop this general offensive of capitalism that we have been facing for decades.
Workers are well aware that the Democrats are not going to stop the bleeding; they're part of the problem.
There will be a backlash”, Robert Reich announces in his video. “We will respond by helping our communities and protecting the most vulnerable.” and he offers some exiting predictions in the electoral arena, “We’ll respond in the 2026 mid-terms and 2008 Presidential Election by electing true leaders who care about working people and the common good”
When Reich talks about, “…. electing true leaders who care about working people and the common good, he is referring to the Democratic Party and its candidates. He doesn’t mention the Democratic Party by name or push this party as an alternative because he is well aware that millions of workers abandoned it long ago. The trade union bureaucracy functions in the same deceptive way, claiming that they don’t support parties but endorse candidates that “fight for working families” no matter which party they’re in.
Sounding a bit like Jeremy Corbyn lite, Reich stresses that Americans have “No alternative other than to take back power……..the pursuit of equality and prosperity for the many not the few.” The program includes regulating finance and industry and “busting up giant corporations.” Didn't Theodore Roosevelt try that over 100 years ago Recall that prior to the catastrophic deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of MEXICO that also killed 11 workers, regulators had allowed energy company personnel to write their own rules in pencil.
Workers have heard all this before from the other capitalist party and it doesn't work. Both Reich, and Sanders who is just as bad if not worse as he claims to be a socialist when he's never really been an independent are no friend of workers.
Both of them are not idiots. They know about working class parties. They know the role these parties have played in other countries in the past.
They are aware of the potential power of the organised labor movement and could call not only for an independent labor/workers party in general but for the organised labor movement to play an important role in it. They could call for mass strikes and work stoppages but are unable to as they fear the working class more than they fear Trump and Wall Street.
Instead, both, as loyal to the other capitalist party as they are, they shepherd workers in to the Democratic Party that is a death sentence for all social movements. Millions have abandoned both parties of capital and many others that have abandoned the Democratic Party and its extreme "woke"agenda and have sought some relief with Trump and the right.
It's early yet folks. As the rich and famous celebrities who think they are experts in everything are threatening to leave the country, good riddance. Workers never won what we have through their efforts anyway. Hold our heads up and, as Joe Hill said, "Don't mourn, Organize."
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