On February 28th, even though he acknowledged the risk of an economic slowdown, President George W. Bush declared, "I don't think we're headed for a recession...I believe that our economy has got the fundamentals in place for us...to grow and continue growing, more robustly than we're growing now. So we're still for a strong dollar." Two weeks later, on March 14th, the President reaffirmed his optimistic outlook before a meeting of economists in New York City, where he expressed confidence in the "resilient" American economy. He did this on the very day that the Federal Reserve and JP Morgan Chase were forced to collaborate on an emergency bailout plan for Bear Stearns, the Wall Street investment bank, after it suffered a run on the bank reminiscent of the Great Depression; and crude oil prices hit a record high $111 per gallon, despite the fact that supply far exceeds demand; and the government announced that mortgage foreclosures rose 60 percent in February; and the dollar hit a record low against the Euro. Bush's denial of reality notwithstanding, it is clear that appearance of prosperity that accompanied the housing boom and real estate economic bubble of the last few years has given way to a full-blown economic catastrophe in the world's largest and strongest economy, thus putting the economic crisis in the forefront of the international situation
In the article about the economy in the last issue of Internationalism we warned that the "worst is still to come. The ink was barely dry before that prediction was confirmed. Ever since the first signs that the housing boom was coming to an end at the beginning of 2007 the bourgeois economists have been playing at setting the odds of a recession in US economy. At the start of this year the field was still quite open, stretching from the ‘pessimists' who thought that a recession had already started in December, to the ‘optimists' who were still expecting a miracle that would avoid it. In the middle, placing a safer bet, were the uncommitted experts saying that the economy "could literally go either way." Things have gone so bad so fast in the last two months that there is not more room for optimism or ‘centrism'; the consensus is now that the good times have come to an end. In other words the American economy is now in recession or, at best, on the brink of one.
However this recognition of American capitalism's troubles has little value for understanding the real state of the system. The official bourgeois definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. A slightly better definition used by the National Bureau of Economic Research mentions a significant, protracted decline in activity that cuts across the economy, affecting measures like income, employment, retail sales and industrial production. On the basis of these definitions the bourgeoisie can't officially designate a recession until one has been going on for a while and often until the worst of it is already behind. Thus according to some estimates one will have to wait until late this year to know if there is a recession, or, the date of its beginning. All this controversy over the onset of the recession is largely beside the point, and only hides the catastrophic state of American capitalism. The current economic slump has nothing to do with an "normal business cycle" as the bourgeois pundits insist, but on the contrary is a manifestation of the convulsions of the permanent economic crisis of decadent capitalism.
American capitalism, and capitalism worldwide for that matter, has dealt with the return of the open crisis for four decades with systematic state capitalist monetary and fiscal policies that have led to the accumulation of so many absurdities that there is a real threat of economic catastrophe. As we pointed out in Internationalism 145, the real estate bubble that gave the semblance of an expanding economy for the past five years was based on easy and speculation, which have now shaken the entire capitalist system.
The American bourgeoisie endlessly proclaims the virtues of free market capitalism. But the present crisis exposes this claim as empty ideological posturing. An economy left to function according to the laws of the market has no place in today's capitalism, dominated by omnipresent state intervention. The last thing the capitalists would dream of today is to permit market forces to settle the current problems. There's no hesitation to call upon the Federal Reserve to manipulate interest rates, for the government to bailout Bear Stearns and other mortgage lenders, and to authorize an economic stimulus package. The bourgeoisie is implementing precisely the same easy money and cheap credit policies to prop up the economy that they have always relied upon.. The Federal Reserve has cut its interest rate benchmark 6 times since September.
For their part the White House and Congress have moved quickly as well, passing a so-called ‘economic stimulus package", in essence approving rebates for families and tax breaks for businesses and passing legislation geared towards easing the mortgage defaults epidemic and reviving the battered housing market. However given the extent of the housing and financial crisis there is even growing consideration of proposals for a massive bailout by the State of the whole housing debacle, the price tag of which would make the huge 124.6 billions bailout by the State of the Saving and loans collapse in 1990 look insignificant.
So far this traditional government medicine to jolt the economy has failed to produce any positive results. On the contrary it seems to be aggravating the illness that is trying to cure. Despite the Fed moves to easy the credit crunch, stabilize the financial sector and revive the mortgage market, credit is in short supply and expensive, the Wall Street rollercoaster ride continues unabated with wild swings and an overall downward tendency and rising mortgages rates are not helping to alleviate the housing slump. Furthermore the Fed's policy of cheap money is contributing to the decline of the dollar, every week hitting new lows against the Euro and other currencies and driving up prices of key commodities like oil. The rising prices for energy, food and other commodities at the same time of a sharply slowed down economic activity are fueling fears among the bourgeois "experts" about the prospect of a period of "stagflation" for the American economy. In any case as things are already today the rising inflation is already squeezing up consumption of people in fix income obliging the working class and other sectors of the population to tighten up their belts.
The March 7 announcement by the Labor Department that 63 000 jobs were lost nationwide during the month of February sent jitters around the bourgeois world. Surely not because of concerns for the lot of laid-off workers, but because this sharp decline in employment confirmed the economists' worst nightmares of a worsening crisis. It was the second consecutive decline in employment and the third straight drop for the private sector. However in a kind of sick joke at the expense of unemployed workers, the overall rate of unemployment declined down from 4.9 to 4.8 percent. How is this possible? The reason is nothing but a clever statistical trick used by the bourgeoisie to underreport the number of unemployed. For the government you are only unemployed if you are out of job, have actively looked for one in the last month and are ready to work at the moment of the survey. Thus the official unemployment rate significantly understates the jobs crisis. It ignores millions of Americans who, both have lost their jobs and given up on finding new ones, or who want to join the workforce but are too discouraged to try to do so because the job situation remains so bleak or simply are not willing to work for half the wage rate that they had in their recent lost job. If these "discouraged" workers were included, the unemployment rate would be significantly higher. Furthermore, the official unemployment rate does not take into account the quality of the employment. It puts part-time and full-time jobs on the same footing, and does not include millions of underemployed workers who want and seek full time employment but have had to settle for part-time work. And since 1983, it includes around two million men and women "employed" by the US military as soldiers and sailors as part of the workforce. This artificially dilutes unemployment, especially as compared to the pre-1983 when it was calculated based on the civilian workforce only.
The present economic slump is bringing an avalanche of lay-offs across all sectors of the economy, but one has to say that the now defunct housing boom was never a paradise for the working class. Income, pensions, health care, working conditions, all continued to deteriorate even while the housing market was booming. This undeniable fact led some economists to point out that this was a ‘jobless' and ‘wageless' recovery. But even this recognition understates the gravity of the situation. The reality is that the working class' working and living conditions have continued to deteriorate for the last 4 decades of open economic crisis, expansions and busts notwithstanding. As this crisis worsens during the present economic slump there is nothing in store for the working class but more misery as the bourgeoisie tries to make it bear the impact of its economic difficulties. For the working class the aggravation of the economic crisis is bringing more misery as it deals with the attacks that the bourgeoisie is launching to try to make it bear the impact of its economic difficulties. -- ES 3/23/2008
The electoral circus is clearly at the heart of the political strategy of the bourgeoisie in the current period. Revolutionaries differ from the bourgeois media pundits because our concern is not to make electoral predictions or succumb to immediatist and empiricist temptations in dissecting the minutiae of the day-to-day evolution of the electoral circus, but to understand the historic role of elections for the bourgeoisie and the strategic interests at stake for the ruling class.
In the period of capitalist ascendance, when capitalism was still historically progressive, in the sense that it was capable of materially advancing the forces of production, the proletarian revolution was not yet on the historical agenda. As pointed out in the ICC's Platform, "in a period when the revolution was not yet on the agenda and when the proletariat could wrest reforms from within the system, participation in parliament allowed the class to use it to press for reforms, to use electoral campaigns as a means for propaganda and agitation for the proletarian programme, and to use parliament as a tribune for denouncing the ignominy of bourgeois politics."
However these social and political characteristics changed drastically with the onset of decadence around the time of World War I. The possibility of wresting durable social reforms from the capitalist system no longer existed, and the orientation of the workers movement toward electoralism and parliamentarism was fundamentally altered. At its Second Congress, the Communist International asserted that "the centre of gravity of political life has now been completely and finally removed beyond the confines of parliament." In decadence, the determination of political policy switched definitively into the hands of the executive branch, the permanent bureaucracy in particular, which rules in the global interest of the national capital. Each capitalist state became locked in a permanent, deadly competition with rival imperialisms as the complete division of the world market created the conditions in which economic expansion was possible only at the expense of rival powers, ultimately through world imperialist war. Despite the ideological campaigns and slogans used to mobilize popular support, the First and Second World Wars were fought in essence to re-divide the world market.
With the disappearance of the historical circumstances that made elections relevant to the workers movement, parliamentarism inevitably became an instrument of political mystification, an ideological swindle perpetuating the democratic myth and obscuring the true nature of the capitalist class dictatorship and fostering the illusion that working people can participate in the determination of governmental policies. On this level, the electoral circus represents the grand ideological maneuver of the bourgeoisie. For the greater part of the past century the American bourgeoisie has been particularly adept in controlling presidential campaigns to put in place political teams that would be capable of implementing its strategic orientations and promote the credibility of the electoral circus. The party in power in the White House was generally determined by carefully orchestrated media manipulation of the electoral process to generate the desired outcomes. Political discipline within the ruling class under which the major parties and their candidates could be relied upon to accept the division of labor determined by the dominant fractions within the ruling class further guaranteed the smooth working of the democratic mystification. Thus for example in 1960, when Kennedy achieved a narrow electoral victory over Nixon through voter fraud by the Daley political machine in Chicago, Nixon chose not to file a legal challenge to the election, but displayed his adherence to bourgeois political discipline by accepting the results in the interests of national unity.
The factors at play in determining the desired left-right political division of labor at the level of the national state may vary depending upon prevailing domestic or international circumstances. For example, when it is necessary for the bourgeoisie to initiate a new round of austerity attacks against the proletariat, it is often useful to put the right in power and the left in opposition. When it is necessary to derail a rising tide of class struggle, it may be useful to put the left in power. On the other hand, in 1992 when George W. Bush displayed ineffectiveness in responding to the imperialist challenges confronting the US after the collapse of the post World War II imperialist bloc system, the bourgeoisie opted to limit him to one term in office. Perot's third party candidacy that siphoned off votes from Bush, facilitated Clinton's victory with only 48 percent of the popular vote.
Since the collapse of the postwar bipolar imperialist bloc system in 1989, the US bourgeoisie has experienced increasing difficulty in effectively controlling the electoral charade. One of the central characteristics of capitalist decomposition is the rise of the tendency of "each for himself," a losing sight of more global perspectives, and a breakdown of political discipline within the bourgeoisie itself. In the presidential elections in particular this has been characterized by a trend toward "a win at any cost" mentality, a thirst for power at the expense of the long term interests of the ruling class. The 2000 electoral debacle was a glaring example of this loss of control. The ruthlessness of the Bush campaign in stealing an election in which it lost the popular vote and had to rely on the corrupt machinations of Jeb Bush's machine in highjacking the Florida vote count demonstrated the degree to which "each for himself" had put in question the capacity of the ruling class to control the political apparatus. This malfunctioning of the bourgeoisie political process led to a situation in which the Bush administration's inept imperialist policy blunders proved disastrous for the US, squandering the political capital/moral authority acquired on the international level in the aftermath of the of 9/11 and the gains made in securing working class acquiescence in rallying behind the state for war. This isolated US imperialism internationally, undermined military preparedness to respond to challenges to US hegemony in other theaters, and destroyed popular support for war, especially in the working class.
This continuing political disarray of the bourgeoisie contributed to a situation in 2004 in which the dominant fractions of the bourgeoisie delayed so long in deciding on its desired political division of labor that despite the best efforts of the media to skew its coverage to favor Kerry and of the permanent bureaucracy in the State Department, the Pentagon and the intelligence community to undermine Bush's reelection possibilities with a steady flow of embarrassing and scandalous revelations, the bourgeoisie failed yet again to achieve its desired results. The 2006 midterm Congressional elections, which produced Democratic majorities in both Houses momentarily revived the electoral mystification as a means to bring about change. But the failure of the Democrats to force significant alterations in imperialist policy quickly produced a new round of popular political disenchantment.
There are two fundamental political objectives for American the dominant fractions of the American capitalist class in the coming presidential election:
a rectification of the Bush administration's disastrous imperialist policies in order to significantly restore American authority on the international level,
a total refurbishment of the democratic mystification, which has taken a terrible beating since the year 2000.
Rectification of Imperialist Policy.
The bourgeoisie has already made great strides in setting the stage for a full scale redressment of the catastrophic implementation of imperialist policy by the Bush administration. With virtually all of the neo-cons driven from the administration and the forced resignation of their close ally, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney is essentially the only hardcore hawk remaining in the inner circles of the administration. The permanent bureaucracy in the State Department, Defense Department, and the CIA, which represents the continuity of American imperialist policy through both Democratic and Republican administrations since the collapse of Russian imperialism in 1989, is increasingly exerting its influence in Washington. The neutralization of the Cheney-inspired campaign to stir up yet another preventative war, this time against Iran, is testimony to the power of this permanent bureaucracy. Career foreign service officials opposed the war plans as yet another irrational policy that would further isolate US imperialism on the international level. Military leaders were painfully aware that American forces are already stretched way too thin to sustain a third front in yet another theatre. And the intelligence bureaucracy, sick and tired of having its intelligence gathering manipulated and twisted by Cheney and the neo-cons with disastrous consequences, gave the administration's bellicose Iran policy the kiss of death by releasing its National Intelligence Estimate findings that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program over three years ago, thus eliminating the rationale of the Bush administration's bellicose policy.
This sets the stage for an even more far reaching realignment of imperialist policy. Whoever wins the White House in November, the struggle of the dominant fraction of the bourgeoisie to pursue a more sophisticated, more "multilateral" imperialist policy, that will lessen American imperialism's growing isolation and reestablish its authority on the international level seems to be making significant headway. Even McCain, who supported Bush's ‘troop surge" last year and still defends the invasion of Iraq, is committed to more multilateral policies and a longer term vision of imperialist military planning.
Refurbishing the Democratic Mystification.
Initially it seemed that the 2006 election constituted a reinvigoration of an electoral mystification that had been badly tarnished by both the stolen presidential election of 2000 and the failure of the American ruling class to accomplish its belated 2004 consensus on the need to elect John Kerry president. By contrast, the 2006 election which put the Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, was portrayed in the capitalist media and by prominent politicians in both major parties, as an expression of the political will of the American people for an end to the war in Iraq, for a change in political direction at the national level. Politicians and political pundits alike threw around phrases like "a swing in the political pendulum," and a "tremendous blow to the Republican party," and there was growing acceptance of the notion that the Republicans were destined to take up the role of political opposition in the future political division of labor. For a while it truly seemed like the sorely eroded public confidence in the electoral process had been restored. But this proved to be short lived as the failure of the Democrats to overcome the Bush administration's continued resistance to end the war in Iraq revived skepticism about the effectiveness of electoralism as a means of expressing the "popular will." Public opinion polls showed the approval ratings of both Bush and Congress hovering at record low levels, approaching 29%. The electorate was just as fed up with the Democrats as they were with the Republicans.
The bourgeoisie desperately needs the 2008 election to revive its central ideological swindle. Having squandered the fruit of its 2006 election so quickly and given the persistent difficulty of the bourgeoisie's dominant fractions to control the electoral process in the context of worsening social decomposition, it is not clear whether the ruling class will be successful in reinvigorating the democratic mystification. Having started out riding a tidal wave of opposition to the war in Iraq, the remaining Democratic presidential candidates now openly acknowledge that an early troop withdrawal is impossible and predict that troops will have to remain in Iraq for quite some time. Even Obama, the most "anti-war" of the candidates, promises a "responsible," "orderly" withdrawal that might take two years or more to complete.
In recent weeks we have once again seen the impact of decomposition on the election, the same win at any cost ruthlessness that characterized the stolen election of 2000, in Hillary Clinton's destructive "Tonya Harding" strategy which puts at risk the bourgeoisie's capacity to regain control over the electoral process. While it is not our concern to predict the election results, it is clear that the bourgeoisie could live with the any of the three remaining candidates, particularly in regard to imperialist policy. However in regard to resuscitation of the electoral mystification, Obama best serves the interests of the bourgeoisie. His charismatic, but largely vacuous, appeals for change have triggered a rarely seen enthusiasm among young generations of voters, who have been largely apathetic to the bourgeoisie political process, drawing them into electoral politics in large numbers for the first time in many years. This is a tremendous plus for the bourgeoisie and has led to unprecedented numbers of voters participating in the primaries and caucuses this winter. Bourgeois political pundits have promoted the Obama phenomenon as "a social movement," that has tapped the wellsprings of "hope" and a desire for change. To the contrary, what we are witnessing is not a social movement, but an extremely successful ideological campaign, reviving the electoral mystification.
Like everything the bourgeoisie does to address its problems in the period of decomposition, the Obama candidacy ultimately risks aggravating the very problems that it's designed to redress. If he fails to gain the nomination or if he gains the nomination and loses the general election, disillusionment sets in with millions of young people. If he gains the nomination and wins the election, it will be impossible for him to deliver any significant change, which would also give rise to widespread disillusionment.
In the months ahead, as the electoral circus gears up even more, it will be critical for revolutionaries to expose this ideological swindle for what it is, and to stress the need for the working class to defend its interests on its own terrain, at the point of production and in the streets. - J. Grevin 04/13/2008
There are so many things that are going wrong in today's world -- wars without end that are killing and displacing millions around the world; health epidemics that condemn millions to early deaths and suffering; famines; homelessness; degradation of the environment that is menace the future of all life on earth; growing pauperization of the working masses of the world.... the list could go on and on. And there is no safe haven.
The metropoles of capitalism and the ever underachieving undeveloped countries, where the majority of the world population lives, are all in the same sinking boat. The talking-heads for capitalism have a thousand-and-one reasons for this situation, none of which is close to the truth. The fact is that in four decades of open economic crisis capitalism has driven the whole of humanity to the edge of a precipice. Society, instead of being in control of its own destiny, seems to be more and more the helpless victim of ruthless social, economic and natural forces that appear to have a life of their own. Left to its own devices decadent capitalism will in the end destroy humanity.
It is against this dramatic background that the international struggle of the working class, the only force in present society that can offer an alternative to capitalism's madness, takes on all its historic importance. It is in this context that we have to situate our balance of the present stage of the working class struggle.
Ever since the first signs of the return of the open
economic crisis of capitalism 40 years ago, the world working class put the
bourgeoisie on notice about its
undiminished historic importance, belying
the modernist propaganda about the disappearance of the proletariat. Once
again the historic class confrontation between the bourgeoisie, representative
of decadent capitalism, and the proletariat, its potential gravedigger, came to
the center of the social situation.
Through successive international waves of struggles, starting with the
great mobilization of workers and students in France in 1968, and up to the
late 1980's, the world proletariat confronted in the class struggle
capitalism's attempts to make workers bear the brunt of its deepening economic
crisis. Many hard lessons about the
working class methods of struggle, the bourgeois nature of the unions, and the
traps of bourgeois democracy were learned in these struggles. This dynamic came to an end with the sudden
collapse of Stalinism at the end of 1989 and beginning of the 1990's.
The world bourgeoisie used this collapse to convince workers about the futility
of hoping for a different world beyond profit driven capitalism. Thanks to
years in which the working class had been made to believe that Stalinism=communism, this campaign delivered
a setback both at the level of combativeness and consciousness in the workers ,sending the class struggle
into a deep reflux for most of the decade of the 90's.
As we have pointed out in the press of the ICC, in the last few years this reflux has come to an end. At the international level, in the last five years, there has been an upsurge of the class struggle by the world proletariat involving all sectors in the developed and underdeveloped countries of capitalism. Combativeness and, above all, consciousness are once again in the rise in the class.
As highlighted in the resolution on the international situation adopted by the ICC's 17th Congress in May 2007 and confirmed by numerous recent struggles throughout the world the general characteristics of these recent class struggles are:
"...they are more and more incorporating the question of solidarity. This is vitally important because it constitutes par excellence the antidote to the "every man for himself" attitude typical of social decomposition, and above all because it is at the heart of the world proletariat's capacity not only to develop its present struggles but also to overthrow capitalism."
The struggles express a disillusionment in the future that capitalism offers us: "nearly four decades of open crisis and attacks on working class living conditions, notably the rise of unemployment and precarious work, have swept aside illusions that ‘tomorrow things will be better': the older generations of workers as well as the new ones are much more conscious of the fact that ‘tomorrow things will be even worse.'"
"Today it is not the possibility of revolution which is the main food for the process of reflection but, in view of the catastrophic perspectives which capitalism has in store for us, its necessity.''
"In 1968, the movement of the students and the movement of the workers, while succeeding each other in time, and while they had sympathy for each other, expressed two different realities with regard to capitalism's entry into its open crisis: for the students, a revolt of the intellectual petty bourgeoisie faced with the perspective of a deterioration of its status in society; for the workers, an economic struggle against the beginning of the degradation of their living standards. In 2006, the movement of the students was a movement of the working class."
True, many of the present struggles are still taking place under the suffocating stronghold of the unions and are often derailed into dead-ends, but as shown during the students struggle in France in spring of 2006, there is also an incipient tendency for the class to struggle to use its own methods, taking control collectively of its own movement. This was the sense of the mass assemblies, open to the participation of all members of the class, that took place during the student movements in France in Spring 2006 and autumn 2007, and also during the struggle of metal workers at Vigo Spain in May 2006.
Workers in the US, faced with tremendous attacks on their working and living conditions by capitalism's deepening economic crisis, have also returned to the path of the struggle, leaving behind the period of disorientation that characterized the 1990's. As we have shown in our press the working class in this country has been a full participant in the present upsurge on the international class struggle, showing both the strengths and weaknesses of this movement.
In the December holiday season of 2005 over 34, 000 NYC transit workers --subway and buses- went on strike effectively paralyzing New York City for 3 days. For the bourgeoisie this movement was the illegal act of selfish vandals - in ‘democratic' America most public workers cannot legally strike. For the working class this was the clear beginning of a new moment in the confrontation with capital. This movement had at its heart the same question of solidarity that we have seen in many other struggles throughout the world. Workers refused to be accomplices in the attempt of the State to create a new pension tier affecting future new hires, to sell out the ‘unborn" as the main slogan of the movement said. This solidarity with the new workers generation, an expression of a growing consciousness of class identity, was echoed by the enormous sympathy expressed by working population of the city with the struggle, despite the attempts of the city officials to turn the population against the striking workers.
However the transit workers strike was not an isolated incident but rather the clearest manifestation of a tendency of the class to come back to the path of the struggle as seen in the grocery workers struggle in California in 2004 and the struggles at Boeing, North West Airlines and Philadelphia transit workers in 2005. This same tendency to return to the path of the struggle continued in 2006, as expressed in particular by the two-week teachers wildcat strike in Detroit in September, and the walkout by more than 12,000 workers at 16 Goodyear Tire & Rubber plants in the US and Canada on October of the same year.
In the last few months of 2007, as we detailed in the last issue of Internationalism, there were a number of simultaneous strikes and struggles, a phenomenon we haven't seen in quite a while. This included a number of official union strikes, such as the strike in New York City by mini-bus drivers who transport people with disabilities, Broadway theater stagehands, and film and TV writers, and an unofficial strike by young "free-lance" workers a MTV in New York. This latter group, many in their 20's and 30's, non-unionized, leading a precarious worklife as more or less permanent temporary workers with little or no health care benefits and relatively low wages, echoed the struggles of the French student movement against the CPE in 2006 in their attempts to self organize, use innovative methods to communicate, including the use of e-mail and websites, and organize street demonstrators. Their slogan "there are too many of us to ignore" reflected a recognition of the need for solidarity and the maxim that in unity there is strength.
More recently there have been two other major strikes in the auto industry involving several thousand workers in a number of states in which workers have shown enormous courage, but which seemed to be under total control of the UAW union honchos. In February 1 2,600 workers at Volvo Trucks North America in Dublin, Virginia, went on strike after the company refused to renew the current contract, presumably in an attempt to force its workers to accept the ‘industry standards' of cutbacks set by the ‘big three' automakers in last year's contract negotiations and union-controlled strikes at GM and Chrysler. February 25, 3,600 workers went on strike at American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. American Axle has five plants in Michigan and New York that produce parts for GM and others automakers. American Axe is demanding wage reductions of up to $14 an hour, as well as elimination of future retiree and pension benefits. Already in 2004 the UAW agreed to lower the wages for starting workers at American Axle after a one-day strike. A union boss at this company in an amazing confession of the bourgeois nature of these organizations said: "the UAW has a proven record of working with companies to improve their competitive position and secure jobs." No comment necessary.
The dominant class has been able to respond to the present upsurge of the class struggle at different levels. After their initial surprise at the time of the NYC transit strike, the bourgeoisie's main focus has been to derail any efforts by the working class in drawing the real lessons of this movement. Thus the main strengths of the strike, the combativeness of these workers that went in strike in defiance of bourgeois legality, their class consciousness and deep sense of solidarity with their class brothers, were turned into a "defeated" strike that ended with workers accepting a worse deal -an across the board establishment of health insurance contributions- than the main reason of the movement --a new more precarious pension system for future workers.- The fallacy of this conclusion is that after the transit strike the local bourgeoisie recognized that its attempt to use the transit workers to set a bargaining pattern had failed and took the proposal for the same new pension system off the table in negotiations with other city workers. Furthermore in an attempt to avoid any contagion from the transit strike to other city workers upcoming contracts were negotiated with unusual speed and without the usual cutbacks.
Another central weapon of the bourgeoisie against the present upsurge of the class struggle has been the use of the democratic mystification, the myth that workers can influence at the ballot box their present fate and the future of society. For nearly three years now, there has been a barrage of intensive political campaigns whipped up by the media (see the article on the election campaign elsewhere in this issue Although it is difficult to quantify, there is no denying that this electoral campaigns have had a negative effect in the working class, particularly at the level of strengthening the democratic mystification. In particular the Obama campaign has been able to draw a lot of attention from the young generation of workers, who are so important to the future of the class struggle. What is clear is that despite this toxic effect of bourgeois electoral campaigns, workers have still been struggling on their own terrain as shown by the mobilizations that we described above.
Also with the excuse of the ‘terrorist' boogey man the dominant class has been strengthening its apparatus of repression creating a social ambience of an omnipresent political persecution, a fear of not saying the ‘wrong' word, or writing it for that matter. Although for the working class at large the present measures of repression are mostly ‘preemptive', direct repression for immigrant workers - legal and illegal-
are already very real. The press is filled with news about the official abuse of these workers by the State repressive apparatus. The question of immigration is being use as always to create divisions within the working class: to play immigrant against native workers, legal against illegal.
However in the ‘field' the most trusted and skillful representatives of capitalism in the struggle against the working class are the Unions and their twin brothers the Left and leftist organizations that use a working class-sounding language to sabotage the workers struggle from within. All the unions have been working hard, helping capitalism manage the crisis on the workers backs, negotiating lay-offs and wage and benefit cuts. And during strikes they have done their utmost to keep struggle workers in isolation, sabotaging solidarity and leading them into dead ends. For their part the leftist -trotskyst, maoist, Marxist-Leninist.... are doing their job in trying to block the development of working class consciousness, defending the unions as working class organizations and spreading the bourgeois ideologies of nationalism and interclasism.
By the bourgeoisie's own accounts the worst of its present economic difficulties are still to come. As the current crisis deepens the working class will face a barrage of attacks, the violence of which it has not seen in the recent past. If the promises of the present upsurge of the class struggle come to fruition will, we will also see an unprecedented level of mobilizations in which the historical stakes of the present will come to the forefront.
The bourgeoisie has no solution to the crisis and can only offer to humanity a future of increasing barbarity. The key to overcoming the present state of society rests with the working class, it is the only force that can through its worldwide revolution bring about a world community based in human needs and solidarity. The intervention of revolutionaries is the class struggle is an essential part of this perspective.
-- Edo Smith 4/12/2008
For the past seven years the American ruling class has moved relentlessly and forcefully to use the events of 9/ll as the pretext for pushing through a tremendous reinforcement of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state. While ostensibly designed as a means to combat the “terrorist” threat from Islamist fundamentalism, the strengthening of the repressive apparatus is a means that the state will not hesitate to use against any threat to its dominance, including especially the working class and its revolutionary movement. Using the semi-hysteria created by 9/ll is a cynical maneuver to undo the post-Watergate reform measures that had been designed to prevent a recurrence of the Nixon administration abuses, in which the repressive apparatus was used against members of the ruling class itself.
The commitment to strengthen repression is not simply the preoccupation of the rightwing, but a general policy orientation of the dominant fractions of the American bourgeoisie, which actually predates 9/11, and that this policy has already tangibly impact on daily life in the U.S. These measures range from the U.S.A. Patriot Act, to the abuse of illegal wiretapping, to development of terrorist watchlists (which now include the names of 917,000 people), to the long list of abuses of the newly granted powers, and the use of new technologies to monitor the everyday activities of citizens.
The U.S.A. Patriotic Act was passed overwhelmingly within a few weeks of 9/ll without any public hearings, without any expert testimony, without hardly an opportunity to read the legislation. That this rush to erode traditional civil liberties was not simply the result of legislative hysteria, was amply demonstrated in five years later when the law was reauthorized with only the most minor alterations, despite widespread criticism of the original provisions. Likewise, there has been no difficulty in securing bipartisan support for the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay which fly in the face of international law, or for wireless wiretaps and surveillance by the National Security Administration (Bush’s dispute with Democrats over immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated in illegal wiretaps before the authorizing legislation is in fact a secondary matter).
The strengthening of the repressive apparatus predates 9/11, which only provided a convenient pretext to accelerate the process. So for example, the Clinton administration provided funding in the 1990s to vastly expand police forces across the country and increased the number of federal crimes that were punishable by the death penalty. Indeed some bourgeois observers noted that Clinton, despite his “liberal” image, had done more to expand the death penalty than Ronald Reagan. The strengthening of the police forces and their closer integration with federal authorities, increases monitoring of various protest movements, as could be seen in the infiltration of groups that protested at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City. So-called “community relations” or “community affairs” units work with demonstration leaders to control protests and keep them under control—a lesson the bourgeoisie learned from the unrest of the 1960s. Recent reports demonstrate that the U.S. has more of its adult population in prison, both in terms of absolute numbers and percentage of adult population than any other country in the world for which reliable statistics are available. According to research generated by the Pew Center on the States, more than $44 billion was spent on prisons last year. Vermont, Connecticut, Deleware, Michigan and Oregon spent as much or more on keeping people in prison than they did on financing public higher education. One in 99 American adults is in jail. Among black males, between 20 and 34 years of age, one in 9 is serving time in prison. For Hispanics, 1 in 36 male adults is behind bars. And all of this occurs at a time when the bourgeoisie brags that crime is declining.
For the working class, the capitalist state is the enemy. The destruction of the capitalist state and its replacement by the power of the workers councils is the central political goal of the workers revolution. It is only a matter of time before the strengthening of the repressive apparatus will be used against the working class struggle. No propaganda campaign about the threat of mindless terrorism can be allowed to hide the fact that it is the revolutionary proletariat that is the real target of this campaign. -- JG 4/12/2008
Anyone who has followed the ICC press in the last couple of years has certainly noticed the articles where we saluted the emergence of a new militants in the working class searching for political understanding and willing to take militant action to defend proletarian interests. This included articles assessing the mobilization of working class students in France in 2006 and the participation of new groups in the internationalist milieu at the 17th Congress of the ICC, to which four groups were invited, but only three were able to attend (the other couldn't participate because of visa problems). The participation of these groups in the work of the ICC reflects the fact that we have entered a new period in the development of the class struggle, both at the levels of combativeness and consciousness, which has broken with almost 15 years of retreat following the collapse of the Stalinist bloc and the confusions that event had sown, and the great effort by the ICC to open up to the new generation in the spirit of fraternal debate.
Internationalism itself, the ICC section in the US, has just completed its yearly territorial conference, at which some close contacts participated, along with delegates from sections of the ICC in Europe and Latin America. Far from representing the final product of a long work, this participation is just the beginning of a promising perspective for growing involvement of the new generation of internationalist comrades at our territorial conferences in the future. Their presence and contributions have inspired the section to pursue the work of opening the debates to our contacts and sympathizers, have instilled greater confidence among the comrades, and have enriched us with the learning experience of how to fruitfully and fraternally conduct debates.
The significance of the participation of these comrades in an internal moment in the life of the ICC cannot be overstated. Today's recovery of class combat is comparable to that of 1968. In both instances we see a deep reflection on the bankruptcy of the capitalist system, on the dead-end of this agonizing system, and a resurgence of elements attracted by left communist positions. In both instances, there is a break with periods of retreat in combativeness and consciousness: 1968 broke with the counter-revolution which had lasted around fifty years following the crushing of the revolutionary wave that began in 1917. Today, the class is leaving behind the retreat it suffered after the collapse of the Stalinist bloc. The presence of our contacts at the conference was really just the tip of the iceberg of this profound maturation. Because a territorial conference -which every section of the ICC holds regularly-- is a vital moment in the life of the ICC as a whole, this truly unprecedented event for Internationalism will contribute to the strengthening and expansion of the ICC presence in the US. We thus anticipate more and better for the future.
Preparing for the conference was as intense as it was politically invigorating, full of anticipation and questions regarding how to conduct an internal event in which non-members were to participate. The goal was to give the US section a clear orientation for its activities and intervention for the year to come. However, the presence of our contacts demanded that we assured their complete inscription in the debates, that their contribution would, in effect, help the section flesh out these orientations. To this end, the various reports were written in advance of the conference date and given to the participants, as well as several others who were ultimately unable to attend. This issue of Internationalism includes articles based on the reports and discussions at the conference (election campaign, economy, class struggle, repression). Readers will appreciate the depth of the analyses, so this report will not go into the details of those reports and discussions. Instead, we would like to make a balance of how the discussions went in order to learn and advance in the future, when we will have more and more comrades participating in our conferences.
Of the various discussions held -on the aspects of the national situation in the US -- the economic crisis, the class struggle, and the political strategy of the bourgeoisie, and the culture of debate - the latter was the one that drew the most comments and reflections by our contacts. We premised it by pointing out that the culture of debate and class consciousness are not the monopoly of any revolutionary organization, but belong to the proletariat as a whole. The class learns its historical lessons and pushes its consciousness forward through debate, as the experience of the general assemblies-the soviets-have demonstrated historically. Debate is a fundamental aspect of political development. In fact, it politicizes. We see the coming to consciousness as a process that goes from confusion to questioning to making mistakes to clarification through the widest possible collective debate conducted fraternally, while maintaining the unity of the organization. It is crucial that revolutionaries deepen on this question in the context of the present aggravation of the crisis, the consequent resurgence of class struggle, and the increasingly clear perspective that capitalism offers no future. The ICC has a tremendously important role to play, but we don't have all the answers. In the words of one of the contacts, "The development of ideas is facilitated by debate and by questions and criticisms posed with respect between the debaters that leads to clarification. Also, it can lead to a new formulation, combining elements within the comrades, and can lead to a new understanding, which could deepen clarification. This could deepen the discussion and clarity becomes more comprehensive within the context of sincere commitment to clarification."
The report on the economic crisis was welcomed with soberness. It was pointed out that the present recession reveals the vulnerability of a system that relies more and more on credit and massive state intervention to stave off economic disaster. While there was caution as to the use of the concept of ‘sudden collapse' and even "catastrophe", the question was raised as to how much and what margin of maneuver the bourgeoisie will be left with. The economic crisis and its plethora of attacks on pensions, jobs, working conditions, wages, and health benefits, is inevitably linked to the resurgence of the class struggle, because it lays bare the dead end of capitalism. Of course, this is what the bourgeoisie itself is watching, in the context of struggles that more and more are posing the question of solidarity and that show similar dynamic internationally. The beefing up of the bourgeoisie's repressive apparatus is seen as a response to the threat of future upsurges of class struggle. It is also the way for the bourgeoisie to face the manifestations of decomposition, such as the threat of massive immigration, but also terrorism.
As to the political strategy of the bourgeoisie, it was pointed out that there is at present quite enough homogeneity within the ruling class regarding the necessity to rectify imperialist policy to enable the US to intervene militarily in other theaters of operations without any precipitous withdrawal from Iraq, that any of the remaining three major candidates would be viable for the next term in power. In terms of which candidate can best revitalize the democratic mystification, badly in need of a face-lift, the answer was, quite obviously, Obama.
Finally, on imperialism, we acknowledge the impasse of the ruling class, lasting already several years, not on which strategy overall, but on how to implement it. Further, we reaffirmed that the more force the US uses to protect the vestiges of its hegemonic status, the more this results in a further decline of its legitimacy as a world power.
The conference was a tremendous learning experience on how to debate and address the points of the discussions. A conference at which contacts participate requires a special level of preparation, a fine tuning of how to pose questions so that the debates can go as deep as possible and an ability to listen for the divergences, hesitations, confusions, the real questioning that goes on within the class, and which our contacts themselves express.
In the words of one of the contacts, "I didn't think depth was reached on some issues, but there was a comprehensive view of the bourgeoisie's strategy and the culture of debate. It certainly opens us up to a deeper analysis on this. I like the way the meetings were held because everyone had a chance to speak and say their ideas, much more valuable than other left meetings that I have gone to. For example, in the trotskyist organizations I had the freedom to ask questions and then they jumped on me when I said something about nationalization that they didn't like. I am glad I came and met you folks and hope we can get together again."
Another comrade commented, "The afternoon started for me with a welcome and I want to say thank you for the invitation. I liked the diversification in the discussion, the different texts, there was something for everybody. I am more familiar today with the conditions of the world...something for the experienced and those less experienced. You made me aware of stuff that I don't think other organizations would share. Giving us the texts in advance was very valuable so I didn't come in here cold. I am aware of being a worker today, not just an American, or whatever brand of nationality or ethnicity or race, but a worker which is much bigger than the other categories. The understanding of consciousness is key. I would have liked to see younger people here in the future. I came in at a 3 and I'm leaving at an 8." For comrades of Internationalism, the conference marks a watershed moment in the effort to open to the fast growing internationalist milieu that surrounds us and which portends great possibilities for the left communist workers movement in the US. Ana, 4/11/08
Dear Internationalism,
I've read your series on how decadence affects capitalism in the International Review. Even though the union movement is portrayed as being progressive in the 1920's and 30's, it had moved away from being a worker's movement and became a hindrance on the working class. In the US, the situation was different in that the industrial unions sprang up in the 1920's and 30's and were quite militant causing wildcat strikes and sit-ins in the plants -- especially in the 30's. Large gains were won in wages, work hours and medical care. Only after the middle 30's did the unions move away from militancy and become supporters of FDR's New Deal and, then, support for the coming imperialist war. The unions after WWII never moved back to militancy. Instead they backed reformist bourgeois liberals who granted concessions while the Soviet Union existed. The workers themselves didn't show militancy but followed the unions' betraying leadership. No significant sector of the union movement emerged to challenge union officialdom and this speaks of a deep moral chasm in the union's middle strata...
SH, Jan. 08
Dear SH
We have discussed your recent message concerning decadence and its impact on the class struggle. We want to salute your seriousness and willingness to share your reflections. In this communication, we would like to expand a bit on why we think unions were integrated into American state capitalism at the time of the First World War, with global capitalism's entry into its decadent phase. Capitalism is a global economic system, and the qualitative change in the capitalist system from its ascendant to its decadent period occurs on a global, international level, not a country by country basis. Certainly, there may be specificities in how global tendencies and processes play themselves out in particular countries, but this in no way should imply that there was any significant difference in the situation in the US compared to other countries.
In this context, the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and industrial unions in the US was NOT an expression of working class militancy, but on the contrary a response by state capitalism to counteract that militancy. Despite the mythology of the CIO's creation propagated by Stalinist and Trotskyist propaganda, the successful organization of industrial unions in the 1930's in the mass production industries was imposed by American capitalism as a means to control, discipline, and eventually mobilize the working class for imperialist slaughter in World War II.
We published a lengthy article in Internationalism No. 12 in 1977, "The Formation of the CIO : Triumph of the Bourgeoisie," which refuted Art Preis' "Labor's Giant Step," which painted a glowing picture of the CIO from a Trotskyist perspective. We think the analysis and evidence developed in that article is pertinent to your further reflection on the unions and decadence. To highlight some central points:
1).- As in other industrialized countries, World War I marked the integration of the unions into the state apparatus, with their participation in the War Industries Board, which was charged with mobilizing American industry for the war. Then serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, during WW I, Franklin Delano Roosevelt worked closely with and appreciated the effectiveness of the WIB, with the unions as full partners and participants, in exerting centralized state control over the economy. In addition a number of other prominent capitalists who participated in the statification of the economy during the war, recognized the benefits that industrial unions could render to American capital, especially in industrial mobilization for war.
2).- While the state capitalist measures introduced during WW I were largely dismantled after the war during the 1920's, not to be reintroduced until the after the onset of the Great Depression and the New Deal program introduced by FDR in 1933, the rise of Fordism and mass production industries during the 1920's increasingly demonstrated the anachronistic nature of the traditional AFL craft unions, as a means for effectively controlling the working class. Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, who had been involved in the work of the WIB during WW I, "vainly tried to convince William Green, the president of the AFL, to form a nation-wide industrial union of electrical workers. For Swope, industrial efficiency would be ‘intolerably handicapped if the bulk of our employees were organized into different and often competing craft unions'" (Internationalism No.12, p3). From the union side, Sidney Hillman, head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, one of the only industrial unions within the AFL, criticized narrow craft unionism because "it permits of no responsibility between labor and management," and undercut the ability to provide for stable and responsible management of large scale industry. In essence, both Swope and Hillman saw that big capital and the state needed to deal with one bargaining agent in each industry to guarantee efficiency and labor discipline. Industrial unionism in decadence was no threat to capitalism, but a necessary tool.
3) -The impotence of organized labor, as personified by the AFL, to control and discipline the American working class was demonstrated during the 1920's and early 30's, where the number of strikes by non-unionized workers as compared to union-called strikes, grew continuously until by the early 30's the majority of strikes in the US were wildcats outside union control - hence, outside state control.
4).- As early as 1933, the incoming FDR administration recognized the necessity to prepare for eventual war with German imperialism and understood that the coming inter-imperialist war required the creation of industrial unions to control and mobilize the masses of unorganized unskilled and semi-skilled workers. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933, a key element in FDR's New Deal, granted workers "the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing," laying the framework for the organization of industrial unions. The National Recovery Administration, which presided over state centralization of the depression-ridden economy openly encouraged unionization. The newly created National Labor Board (NLB) decreed that the union receiving a majority of votes in a plant would have exclusive bargaining rights for all employees in the plant, a practice that differs from many European nations, where a single plant may have workers belong to different unions affiliated with the CP, the SP or and centrist political party. US capitalism was committed to centralized control over its workforce in key industries. While unionization of mass production industries had the support of the state, and "enlightened" members of the industrial and financial bourgeoisie, it was opposed by small and medium sized industrialists organized in the American Manufacturers, as well as recalcitrant big capitalists like Henry Ford (Ford) and Tom Girdler (Republic Steel). . In any case, the AFL proved indifferent and unwilling to undertake organization of unskilled workers.
5).- The strike wave of 1934, as increasing numbers of workers rebelled against the conditions of hardship, convinced the FDR administration that it couldn't rely on the AFL to organize the working class. The Wagner Act gave strong enforcement powers to the newly created National Labor Relations Board to override the resistance of backward members of the bourgeoisie and to accelerate the efforts of the Congress of Industrial Organizations to organize the mass production industries. The CIO and state leadership was crystal clear on its role in service of capitalism. CIO President John L. Lewis, from the Miners, in reference to the spontaneous eruption of class struggle and strikes, said, "it is conceivable that if this dangerous state of affairs is allowed to continue there will not only be ‘class-consciousness' but revolution as well. But it can be avoided. The employers aren't doing much to avoid it. The United Mine Workers are doing everything in their power to make the system work and thereby avoid it." The head of the NLRB, Lloyd K. Garrison, said "I regard organized labor in this country as our chief bulwark against communism and other revolutionary movements." Len De Caux, editor of the CIO Union News Service, said, "When collective bargaining is fully accepted, union recognition accorded and an agreement reached, CIO unionists accept full responsibility for carrying out their side of it in a disciplined fashion, and oppose sit-downs or any other strike action while it is in force."
6).- Reflecting the anger and discontent of the workers, it is true that militant strikes erupted in many industries during the CIO unionizing drives, including the sit-downs at General Motors in 1936-37, which involved 136,000 workers in 17 plants, where strikers demanded abolition of piece work payment schemes, a thirty hour week/six hour work day, premium pay for overtime, reinstatement of fired workers, and worker control of production line speed. However the militancy of the workers should not be confused with the attitude of the CIO unions. For instance, while the plants remained under worker control, the union bureaucracy paid lip service to the workers' demands and concentrated on union recognition as their central concern. Forced by the government pressure to end the strike, GM agreed to bargain with the United Auto Workers for the next six months in exchange for an end to the factory occupations. In the end, the union surrendered on the central workers' demands but won union recognition, which was the pattern throughout the CIO's organizing campaigns. --Internationalism 02/1/2008
This article has already been published on this site here:
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/economic-crisis
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/17/465/us-presidential-elections-2008
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/50/united-states
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/class-struggle
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/war-terror
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/life-icc/congress-reports
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/19/union-question
[9] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/people/afl-cio
[10] https://en.internationalism.org/wr/313/may-68