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NEWS & LETTERS, OCTOBER 2003EditorialHuman impact of 'job-loss' economyEconomists are at a loss these days to explain what they see as a current rapid growth of the U.S. economy at the same time that there is such a “persistent stagnation” of the “job market.” Rather than stagnation, the reality is ever-deepening layoffs, or what is being called the “job-loss recovery.” While industrial production jumped 5% since the recession was declared over at the end of 2001, more than one million jobs have been eliminated in that same period. The truth is that no less than 2.7 million manufacturing jobs alone have been lost since Bush took office, or over three million jobs in total. It need hardly be emphasized that any worker can figure out the reason for this. Inasmuch as the term “increased productivity” is taken to mean far more goods being produced with far fewer workers in the same unit of time, there is clearly no reason for employers to hire new workers or rehire those who were cut away. Temporary layoffs are now permanent, while those still employed are burdened with the work of those no longer there. In good old-fashioned terms it is called speed-up--but far more vicious than ever before. The repercussions are drastic in terms of the health both of those “fortunate” enough to remain on the job and those whose health benefits are the first ones to disappear with their jobs. It is why one of the greatest concerns of auto workers during the recent negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three auto companies was the retention of their health benefits. Not only did the union, however, cave in on the health issue, allowing for higher premiums, but it agreed to a wage freeze and allowed GM to close at least 12 plants, which will lead to thousands of more layoffs. While the overall national unemployment level for Black America is, as usual, more than double that for white America, even more significant is the fact that the rate at which Black workers are losing jobs and joining the unemployment line since 2,000 is more than twice that of white workers, since Black workers tend to be more concentrated in the hard-hit manufacturing sector. A DEEPENING CRISIS In the middle of a crisis such as this, what does it mean that the American people have now been informed by President Bush that the price tag for his wars on Afghanistan and Iraq will cost $87 billion more than he first thought? Added to the already enormous amount devoted to defense spending, America’s military budget will far exceed that of all other nations combined, pushing the 2004 defense budget to no less than $470 billion--a figure that, when adjusted for inflation, matches U.S. military spending during the Cold War at its peak. The question is not whether the added billions Bush is now asking for should be used to reconstruct Iraq’s schools and hospitals or to salvage those at home. The vast bulk of the $87 billion first requested will be used, not to restore the water and electricity or any of the devastated infrastructure of Iraq, but to increase the military and intelligence capabilities of the occupiers. The question is rather how Bush has managed, under the cloak of a “war against terrorism” to bloat the military budget to such an unprecedented size at the very moment the U.S. is suffering its deepest fiscal crisis in half a century. This year’s federal deficit will be no less than $455 billion, while billions of dollars in social benefits are being slashed from state budgets. The price the American people are paying to help fund Bush’s permanent war is enormous. At the same time, how could it be that two years ago a budget surplus of $353 billion was predicted, whereas a deficit of $540 billion is expected next year. DIVE FROM SURPLUS TO DEFICIT Although the heavy costs of Bush’s permanent war--piled on top of his unconscionable tax cuts for the rich, planned to reach $3 trillion over 10 years--bear a large share of responsibility for the shocking dive from the budget surplus of the '90s to the enormous deficits at the end of the first three years of Bush’s stolen presidency, the truth is that that dive began even before he took office. A number of economists believe the surplus was “essentially ephemeral” in that it was based on a stock market boom that declined at a “breathtaking” rate once the bubble burst. To understand what we are witnessing today demands a return to the structural changes capitalism underwent in 1975, when the overwhelming preponderance of constant capital (or machinery) over variable capital (living employed labor) resulted in the greater and greater decline in the rate of profit for the capitalists. Marx, in his greatest theoretical work, CAPITAL, foretold this when he showed that, because labor-power is the source of all value, including surplus value, as fewer workers are employed relative to constant capital in the production process, what follows is the tendential decline in the rate of profit. Capitalism’s response was an intensive effort after 1975 to cut wages and benefits and to send jobs to the low-wage corners of the global economy. At the same time capitalists tried to increase productivity with ever more high-tech labor-saving devices. In a recent piece on disappearing factory jobs in Canton, Ohio, one NEW YORK TIMES reporter recorded the voices of workers who had just lost their jobs after long years in the factory. One of them bluntly called the capitalist’s threat of moving their jobs to lower wage locations offshore “a form of terrorism.” While all the workers interviewed were clearly angry and worried at the jobless future awaiting them, the prevailing view seemed to be that there is no “simple answer” to the crisis. What is becoming clear is that there is no answer within the confines of the present system. This makes the search for an alternative to the barbarism of capitalism a life and death issue for humanity today. |
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