The only time capitalists speak of patriotism is when they exhort workers to buy their ‘home grown’ products and when they urge them to fight for their interests in wars.
Our current economic system, capitalism, is based on private ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth produced by the workers i.e. the land, resources, the factories and machinery, the transportation systems etc. Goods are produced with a view to making a profit that comes from the extra value that the worker puts into the products over and above his wage. That is, after working for part of the day to create enough value to pay his wage, the worker then continues to work to create the value that becomes profit. Economist Jim Stanton in 2009 said that the average Canadian auto worker earns $65 000 per year and creates $300 000 in value. If the figures are correct, then, if the worker starts his shift at, say, 7am, he has earned his wage by about 8:45am and the rest of the day he works for his employer for free.
Capitalist production is commodity based, meaning that goods are produced only with a view to making a profit. If that profit doesn’t materialise, or is less than expected, production ceases, no matter what the need is. Food, in many parts of Africa, is a prime example of this system in action. No profit, no production, can’t pay, can’t have, is the logo of commodity production. Capital accumulation must take place for the system to work. Investors expect to take away more than they put into an enterprise. Capital then is value in perpetual search of additional value, and it this continual search for augmentation that drives, or derails, the capitalist mode of production. It must be, of course, predicated on continual expansion, ever greater destruction of the earth to extract resources, ever greater factories, machines, and production systems, ever greater markets to absorb the extra products. Capital’s search for greater value means that the managers of the investment funds and the corporations involved in every aspect of production are charged with finding opportunities for producing the greatest value. In this, they are in a life and death struggle with their competitors. Lose the struggle and your capital investment dries up and you are taken over or, worse, you go bankrupt. Given this analysis of our economic system, it is not surprising that qualities such as ethics, loyalty, or morality are tossed aside when it comes to the economic survival of a business. A Corporation is a paper agreement between groups of risk capital and has no feelings. Its mandate is to protect and augment the capital it has been loaned. If this protection means cutting the payroll, then it is unfortunate but so be it. If returns are better in one area of the globe, then, as water flows with gravity to the lowest level, so capital will flow to the lowest cost area. The profit oriented and competitive nature of capitalist production compel the bosses to keep costs, such as labour, as low as possible. Some may search for long-term solutions to the problem of jobs being out-sourced abroad. There is one solution that would end the turmoil and insecurity of relying on the whims of capital and profitability for good - the establishment of socialism.
What is to be done?
In the short term, there is very little that can be done to reverse the situation. As noted above, when the prospect of profitability returns, capital will be invested again and the recovery will begin. Union activity through pressure on employers, collective bargaining, demonstrations etc. are always available to mitigate the worst aspects of the system, but are even less effective during a recession, as current negotiated concessions of wages and benefits attest. In the longer term, we must examine the system that creates so much wealth but delivers so little to the general population and yet so much to the few owners. It is a change in this ownership that The Socialist Party proposes. Presently, capital dominates our life. It tells us that we must get a job to survive, then tells us when and how we do it, what the conditions of work will be, and even whether we will work at all. We propose that a new system of producing and distributing wealth is needed, one where the ownership of the world’s resources, and the means to turn them into useful goods, is owned by all, in common, and operated democratically, in the interests of all. That would mean all mankind would get a proper diet, housing, clean water, education, health-care, and the need for continual wars over who owns the resources (the major cause of all wars) is ended. The only answer is to abolish capitalism and establish a society where all stand equal in relation to the tools of production, decisions are made by the people in the interests of the people, and love of humanity reigns supreme.
Since reformers accept the status quo, they are condemned like Sisyphus to roll a great weight uphill only to see it roll down again. In a socialist society, where all will stand equal in relation to the tools of production, there will be no unemployment, no one will be homeless and no one will be denied medical attention because the wealth of society will be distributed through a system of free access to all goods and services produced. Who wouldn’t want it? So why not work politically and consciously for that end?
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