In its normal state, capitalism has become an obsolete oppressive system that ought to be got rid off. But during periods of economic crisis as we all encounter “hard times", its ending becomes an imperative.
Basically there are two sorts of unemployment. The first is the unemployment of the idle leisure class, the parasites and leeches, who while unemployed spends millions in conspicuous consumption. The second is the enforced unemployment of the wage slave.
We are told that there exists free labour. The employer is free to offer us terms of any kind – we are free to starve unless we accept these terms. Workers create profits, such huge profits that even in their wildest extravagances. Such is the “normal” paradox of capitalism that idle factories and idle workers side by side with the hunger of people throughout the world.
Capitalism greedily demands more and more profits, and uses faster machines to produce goods and profits at a faster and faster rate. Workers are thrown on the streets. During periods of higher unemployment, there is a corresponding increase of prostitution, murders and suicides. The defenders of law and order point at the mounting crime wave, but of course do not dare to examine the economic cause or the capitalist system. During periods of unemployment, disease and death rate increase. Among workers these are always high, but during hard times they rise to terrible levels. Fed on adulterated foods, poorly housed, the workers become more vulnerable than ever to disease. During periods of unemployment the wages of those at work are slashed by the boss and the reply to any protest is: “there are plenty who want your job if you don’t”
Every worker must ask: What is to blame?
The skilled worker thinks it is the introduction of new technology; the older worker blames the younger and vice versa; men accuse women; white workers point the finger at blacks: the native born say the cause in the immigrant ; the deluded Labour voter says it’s the Tories; the Tory worker says its the Labour government.
The False Allure of Palliatives
Hungry workers fall easy prey to glib charlatans. Amid the chaos all sorts of plans and cure-alls appear from all sides to save the day. The “best brains” in the country are hired by the rulers to patch up the shaky capitalist economy. There is an attempt to hide the class struggle with the propaganda that all classes must cooperate for the good of the nation, must subordinate all their own interests to this end. Economically, it means the saving of the capitalist system at the expense of greatly lowering the standard of living of the workers. Too often the economic snake-oil peddlers suggest all manner of bank and money reform. They see the trouble with capitalism in its system of exchange. As a matter of fact the exchange or money system is but a reflection of the production system, and is so closely bound up with this that they can no more be separated than the arm from the body. To change from one money system to another (a return to the gold standard, for instance) would only add new confusion. Some government interventionists follow Keynes and advocate an inflationary policy but in the end those who sell also have to buy, so that what they gain in one way they lose in another. This situation applies to industrialists, producers, farmers and such, and to the State itself. The unemployed find that the government is cheating them through inflation. With one hand the government hands out “relief” with the other hand, it so raisies up the cost of living. As for those working in the industries, their wages never can rise as fast or as high as the cost of living in periods of inflation. They suffer a direct loss in real wages and thus are made to bear the full expenses of the crisis.
All the supposed panaceas suffer from the following fundamental defects:
1. They assume that all that is necessary is for some smart think-tank or expert to think up a “plan”, something perfect, and that by a mere argument the whole world system of production and exchange will be changed so that all will have plenty.
2. They assume that they can keep capitalism and yet eliminate its anarchy, chaos and contradictions. They assume that they can stop the development of capitalism and stop its evils.
3. They believe that they can redistribute the wealth of the country without sharp class struggles leading to revolution. Capitalists understand that the system of distribution goes hand in hand with the system of production. If workers are given more than enough barely to live, they would not return to work in the factories for some exploitative boss to make money out of their labour. Factories are run for profit and not for humanity; and any attempt to take away the private wealth and ownership from the capitalists and give the control over the means of production to the workers will be met by class war. The reformists always forget to state that the bosses control the government, that the state is a capitalist state.
The Right To Work
It is a big mistake for the unemployed to demand “We Want Work!”. All our lives we have worked and toiled for the capitalists. Now we are out of work the demand is—more work! “We want work! We must have work! Without work we are lost!” What master can object when his slave devotedly exclaims: “All I want is to work for you, to slave for you even more than in the past. My whole life is at your service.” The capitalist likes to see the workers work. It means his wealth, capital will be increased and that he can try to beat his competitor down better. It means that his workers are still under his discipline. The employer knows that every bit of work that the workers do increases his power and stability. It is not work that the capitalists fear—it is the class struggle. The boss fears that the workers will demand that the stuff which they produce should be turned over to them as the direct producers, that the factories should be owned and controlled by the working-class and the capitalists eliminated. The slogan “We want work!” takes attention away from the main job, that of wiping out the capitalists and their entire work system. How can you attack the system which hires labor and exploits it, when you are clamoring for work under that system, demanding and beseeching it? And if work is such a fine cure for unemployment, then how does it come about that just before the crisis began everyone was busy, everyone was at work and wages were relatively high? Is it not true that just before every capitalist crisis we have a period of feverish activity where everyone is working full speed under capitalism? hese people who shout “We want work!” fail to realize that it was precisely because everyone was working that we did have such a terrible crisis. The workers were being exploited harder than ever, they were turning over vast amounts of stuff to the bosses who had to sell this stuff and could not. Not being able to sell their goods at a profit, the capitalists were forced to close down their plants and increase the unemployment lines because the workers had produced too much, because they had worked too hard. The slogan “We want work!” implies that what is wrong with the present system of society and what has caused the depression is not overwork but under-work. Or, on the other hand they imply that it is not the work system that is to blame but the “system of distribution.” In both cases they attack the bosses not because he is driving the workers too hard but because he did not give them enough work. It must be constantly kept in mind that the demand for work, is the demand to work under present social conditions, with capitalist control and direction. But what is this capitalist control? It is a control that destroys the crops, that lays waste the soil, that rots the products, that rusts the machinery, that devastates the land, that kills the humans—that is capitalist control. To demand work under capitalism means to demand work that increases the destructiveness, the waste, the misery of the world.
The natural demand ought to be “No more work until we get what we have produced. The stuff in the warehouses is ours”. It is clear that we must demand not work but raise the slogan: “No work until we get control over production” The demand “We want work!” is a demand that blinds the workers and prevents them from seeing that they do not have to work much to eat, that the workers have produced plenty which the boss has grabbed for himself. What the unemployed must fight for is to end the capitalist control over the factories and industries. Unemployment crises are as old as modern capitalism, and thus it is clear the causes and roots of unemployment lie in how capitalism works. To feed the hungry and unemployed, we do not have to create new “work schemes”. There are enough factories, there are enough goods for all to have plenty. Instead of demanding work, it is up to the working class of this country to demand to get what they have already produced and to demand control over the factories and other means of production which they themselves have produced.
When the unemployed raise the demand “We want work!”, this acts as a tool in the hands of every employer who now can blackmail his work-force: “You see, there are plenty after your job, they like your job and are trying to get it. If you don’t behave I shall fire you and put them in your place". In other words, this slogan “We want work” throws the whole army of unemployed against those at work and divides the working-class into two antagonistic sections. Each time the factory workers want to strike against wage cuts or for better conditions, they are reminded that there are millions of unemployed who are praying, yea, are demanding, work and will do anything to get it. Thus the slogan “We want work!” helps to throw labour into a panic and fasten the control of the bosses more strongly than ever. The demand “We want work” means that the workers declare they would be very glad to return to the old state of affairs that existed, the return of the fiction of the “good old days”.
Conclusion
This article has tried to make it plain that unemployment will never end so long as there is capitalism, and that to fight unemployment means to fight to overthrow the capitalist system. Only by overthrowing the system of capitalism will unemployment be done away with. A socialist society alone can eliminate the terrors of unemployment. Capitalism can be replaced and a new system offer employment and plenty for all. Unemployment calls for a radical cure not a reformist salve to heal the ulcer and retain the body of capitalism. The only cure for unemployment is the overthrow of the capitalist system. There can be no solution to the unemployment problem under capitalism. The solution can be found only in the socialist revolution on a world scale. Tinkering is useless. The problem of abolishing unemployment by having a revolution is nowhere near as difficult as the impossible task of trying to abolish it without one! The capitalist system cannot give jobs and cannot “cure” unemployment, or make our lives more comfortable. Let the workers, employed and unemployed, unite their mighty strength together to get rid of the parasitic system that condemns them in the midst of plenty to hunger like beggars for a crust of bread. To eliminate unemployment means we must to proceed with abolishing the market economy. Socialists know there is no other remedy but the one we advocate
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