well, the bailout of the American car industry went ahead. Unsurprisingly, my suggestion that it should involve turning the industry over to the workers was not raised. Instead, it was used to attack the unions and the working class as a whole. To quote Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead by Michael Moore:
well, the bailout of the American car industry went ahead. Unsurprisingly, my suggestion that it should involve turning the industry over to the workers was not raised. Instead, it was used to attack the unions and the working class as a whole. To quote Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead by Michael Moore:
“But instead, the Senate said, we’ll give you the loan only if the factory workers take a $20 an hour cut in wages, pension and health care. That’s right. After giving BILLIONS to Wall Street hucksters and criminal investment bankers — billions with no strings attached and, as we have since learned, no oversight whatsoever — the Senate decided it is more important to break a union, more important to throw middle class wage earners into the ranks of the working poor than to prevent the total collapse of industrial America.”
I do like Michael Moore, even if he is a left-liberal. His heart is in the right place, as are many of his arguments! And, to be honest, any critique of his politics amounts to concluding “He is not an anarchist”, which he never claimed to be!
Ignoring the annoying American habit of calling the working class the “middle class” (as if class were to do with income rather than your position in the social and economic hierarchy), his comments are 100% right. Why bailout the few who got us into this mess and penalise the many? And Moore’s comment reminds of me Stephen Colibert:
But I cannot say that I’m that surprised, the Republicans hate unions intensely. Probably because they show, in a flawed way, that there is an alternative to capitalism — and because unions have the power to stop attacks on the working class to pay for a crisis they did not create. As a leaked GOP memo entitled “Action Alert – Auto Bailout” puts it:
“Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it.”
This is unsurprising, as both neo-classical and “Austrian” economics conclude that in a recession the working class must pay the price required to solve the problems the decisions they had no say in making result in. Thus the conclusion is, always, cut-wages (always for the workers, never for the bosses). As a “a knowledgeable source” puts it:
“Why? Because they wanted the federal government to forcibly reduce the wages of American workers within the next 12 months.”
This is, of course, in spite of the lack of empirical evidence and logical flaws in this analysis.
As I noted in my article on the French strikes last December, the ruling class and their defenders tried to attack the strikes by saying they were getting a better deal than other workers. I note that Republicans may be seeking to repeat this neo-liberal “politics of envy” (via digby):
“Toyota workers are paid very well, they have outstanding benefits, but that is not good enough for Ron Gettlefinger in the UAW. Instead they want a gold plated package as if they’re the British aristocracy.I don’t think a waitress making $30,000 a year in Indiana ought to send her tax dollars to Washington to subsidize that nonsense.”
Of course, the answer to this is simple — the non-unionised workers should organise and raise their living standards to the union level! I suppose that part of the problem is that many people, particularly in America, do not realise how unequal capitalism is (particularly American and British capitalism). According to Paul Krugman‘s new book, about 75% of the America population have an income below $75,000, 60% have less than $50,000. You are in the bottom half of the top 10% if you earn $100,000 to $150,000 (making Joe the Plumber worry about his taxes when he gets into the top 5%!). Still, it is funny to see the right invoking “the politics of envy” to attack working class living standards!
Talking of Krugman, I’m doing a review of his book and suffice to say, The Conscience of a Liberal is very good on the results of 30-odd years of neo-liberalism on the working class (and why unions are a good idea for all workers, unionised or not), but (surprise!) not so hot on the strategy (a New New Deal). But, then again, he is a liberal (so really need to love him!)
I would also like to quote myself, from my obituary on Milton Friedman. Apparently the Fed, like good little Monetarists, has been injecting money into the banking system to maintain the monetary base (currency plus bank reserves). As in the early 1980s when Reagan and Thatcher tried to control the money suppy, it is not working. I’m not surprised:
“As an ideologue for capitalism, Friedman sought to show that it was a stable system and sought to exempt capitalism from any systemic responsibility for recessions. He attempted to show that the Great Depression was not a failure of capitalism, but rather of the state. He argued that the monetary authorities in the US and Europe reduced liquidity in the system, thus making a bad situation worse. Sadly, as his critics pointed out, even his own figures did not back this claim up. Equally sadly, no one has bothered to tell his fans. For Friedman’s 90th birthday in 2002, Ben Bernanke — then a Federal Reserve governor, now chairman of the US central bank — stated that "Regarding the Great Depression, you’re right. We did it. We’re very sorry."
“Nice to know that people with such a firm grasp of economics and history are in such commanding positions! You would think that the application of his economic dogmas would have been a sufficient wake-up call. The Thatcher and Reagan governments tried to implement his ideas of controlling the supply of money in order to stamp out inflation. And failed miserably. The first Thatcher government saw over 20% inflation and the biggest slump since the 1930s. Reagan’s record was as bad. The massive unemployment that generated did break the back of the labour movement, and so inflation, but never once was the money supply controlled.”
Looks like I was right — I do hope that once this crisis is over, Milton Friedman will be finally, and rightfully, forgotten — but given his reputation survived proclaiming Pinochet’s Chile an “economic miracle” just before its economy collapsed as well as the utter failure of Monetarism, I guess his utility for justifying capitalism will continue to outweight his errors.
For example, Friedman’s assertion that “free market” capitalism was associated with less inequality than other systems was utterly refuted under Reagan and Thatcher. Inequality soared, while social mobility fell.
And talking of inequality, I also should comment on what appears to be a debate between the right-“libertarians” and some genuine individualist anarchists (like Kevin Carson) on a few issues, of which the concept of bargaining power has arisen. One of the right-“libertarians” has proclaimed that “”The notion of ‘bargaining power’ is leftist to the core”.
I’m not that surprised, as I’ve argued that the fact of economic/market power and inequality is one of the many fundamental problems with “anarcho”-capitalism (as with all forms of capitalism). It can only really appear “libertarian” if economic power is ignored or denied, and so it is. As noted in AFAQ:
“However, the right-‘libertarian’ denial of market power is unsurprising. The “necessity, not the redundancy, of the assumption about natural equality is required ‘if the inherent problems of contract theory are not to become too obvious.’ If some individuals are assumed to have significantly more power are more capable than others, and if they are always self-interested, then a contract that creates equal partners is impossible — the pact will establish an association of masters and servants. Needless to say, the strong will present the contract as being to the advantage of both: the strong no longer have to labour (and become rich, i.e. even stronger) and the weak receive an income and so do not starve. [Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, p. 61] So if freedom is considered as a function of ownership then it is very clear that individuals lacking property (outside their own body, of course) lose effective control over their own person and labour (which was, least we forget, the basis of their equal natural rights). When ones bargaining power is weak (which is typically the case in the labour market) exchanges tend to magnify inequalities of wealth and power over time rather than working towards an equalisation.”
And need I point out that Adam Smith recognised this aspect of capitalism, unlike neo-classical economics!
Moreover, recognising the importance of equality is a key aspect of genuine anarchism — otherwise “liberty” becomes little more than the freedom to pick a master (i.e., not genuine freedom at all). The reason was stated clearly by Proudhon in the first anarchist book (What is Property?) in 1840:
“But it is superior strength also which enables the manufacturer to reduce the wages of his employees, and the rich merchant and well-stocked proprietor to sell their products for what they please. The manufacturer says to the laborer, ‘You are as free to go elsewhere with your services as I am to receive them. I offer you so much.’ The merchant says to the customer, ‘Take it or leave it; you are master of your money, as I am of my goods. I want so much.’ Who will yield? The weaker.”
Which shows how far “anarcho”-capitalism is from anarchism. But we all knew that already… And it also shows how have from reality it is. Denying market/economic power is the right-“libertarian” equivalent of the wonderful Stephen Colbert’s “reality has a well known liberal bias”:
In more important news, the Greeks are still resisting and the struggle is now in its second week. Both Anarkismo and Infoshop News both have news on it.
Howard Zinn has some important words (via here) on the need for direct action, in particular with the Chicago Workers Sit-In:
I should note that occupations are but the first step in a longer struggle to transform society and the economy. We do not aim simply to get rid of the bosses and leave everything else basically the same! I really should not have to state the obvious, but some “primitivists” repeat the assertion that non-primitivists seek simply to get rid of the boss.
So workers occupations are the first stage, and it must be the stepping-stone to transforming work, the workplace — and what is produced. The example of the Lucas workers in the 1970s is a good one (from GM, Chrysler and the Recovery Program):
“For an alternative, step back into history and consider the story of Lucas Aerospace, brilliantly chronicled by Hilary Wainwright and David Elliott in The Lucas Plan: A New Trade Unionism in the Making? Lucas made military aircraft and was facing devastating (but socially desirable) cuts in demand for their wares. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, production workers teamed up with engineers and conducted a detailed inventory of their firm’s capacity: what skills and resources they comprised. Then they canvassed a range of nonprofit organizations to find out what kinds of products served important social needs but were not being provided in the market, like improved prosthetic devices and equipment for upgrading railroad crossings. Putting two and two together, they proposed production plans to give the company a new lease on life. The final piece, however, never materialized. The social agencies needed the government to allocate funds for these new products, but the government didn’t come through, and Lucas eventually folded.”
I hope that makes it clear, and shows some of the potential to transform society once hierarchy is abolished by self-management.
Finally, I should mention that Steve Keen’s excellent book Debunking Economics is available as an ebook. It is worth reading, as my review hopefully shows