Editorial
Editorial: Let's save humanity,
not the
billionaires
The headlines are ominous: "Asia Braces for Further
Currency Falls";
"Korea's Crisis Sends Ripples Around the World."
The bad news is, things
are going to get worse before they get better. The
steadily widening
economic crisis in Asia and what seems to be a
worldwide motion toward
police states is proof of that. The good news is,
there is cause for hope. A
basis for unity and struggle of the majority of the
people around a common
program is developing.
The Asian financial crisis threatens to engulf the
world, and at its root are
fundamental flaws in the very system of capitalism.
It's not just Asia that the
capitalist governments are trying to bail out, but
the capitalist system itself.
And even this "bailout" (if it works at all) will
be temporary, until the next
(and deeper) crisis manifests itself.
We don't need another bailout of the billionaires;
we don't need to tinker
with the existing system; we need a new system, one
that serves humanity
rather than impoverishes and oppresses it.
While the ruling-class politicians and economists
point to "corruption and
mismanagement" as the cause of Asia's troubles, the
developing crisis is
really a reflection of several things: the
globalization of markets for capital,
labor, and goods and services; the replacement of
labor with electronics in
the production process; the flooding of world
markets with more products
than people can buy; the falling rate of profit;
and the shifting of huge
amounts of capital from productive investment to
speculation. The
combination of these factors is what caused the
crisis that threatens to
spread worldwide.
The chief underlying cause is the shift to a system
of production based on
computers and robots; this has begun the process of
eliminating human
labor from the workplace. Labor is the source of
economic value and
profit; reduce the amount of labor in the goods
that are produced, and you
reduce the rate of profit. At the same time,
cutting wages and jobs is
shrinking the market for the goods that are
produced. The prospect of
falling profits and shrinking markets is what has
caused the financial
collapse sweeping across Asia. The crisis is both
compounded and
manifested by the massive debts of governments and
corporations and the
global orgy of speculation in stocks, bonds,
derivatives, real estate,
currencies, etc.
The terms of the $100 billion-plus "bailout" of
Asia will only make things
worse -- it means wage and benefit cuts for the
countries involved, cuts in
government spending, businesses going bankrupt,
people's savings wiped
out, and jobs and markets eliminated. And at the
same time, the crisis will
flood world markets with even cheaper goods. Couple
this with a
spreading financial panic, and you have a
prescription for a worldwide
downward spiral of wages and prices, meaning a
global depression.
But there is hope. In this country, the common
poverty of a huge and
growing section of workers -- whether employed or
unemployed -- is
laying the basis for unity across lines of color
and nationality and along class
lines.
The economic revolution that has produced a global
economy and
production by computer is steadily splitting
society in two. It has created
two new classes -- a class of wealthy speculators,
on the one hand, and on
the other a true proletariat, a class of people who
are economically
unnecessary because their labor is no longer needed.
The core of this new class of dispossessed -- the
part-time workers, the
temps, the unemployed, the homeless, the low-wage
workers, the welfare
recipients, the workfare slaves -- has no ties to
capital and no interest in
maintaining a system that is literally killing them.
The worldwide trend is for
the majority of society, including the skilled
workers, to become members
of this proletariat.
New means of production and new classes mean a new
society must be
born. The needs of the proletariat -- for food,
clothing, housing, health
care, for life itself -- can only be met by a
fundamental reorganization of
society along cooperative lines. In this sense, the
proletariat is a
revolutionary class.
There is no question that society will be
reorganized; the question is, by
whom? By the global speculators, whose morality
dictates that whole
nations be impoverished so their profits can be
maintained? Or by the
proletariat, whose morality demands a peaceful,
prosperous, orderly
society where no one is allowed to suffer? This is
the underlying question
that is being fought out in our country today.
The daily struggle for reform, for life, is the
form the revolutionary
movement takes. But its inevitable ultimate aim is
a cooperative society,
where the necessities of life are distributed
according to need. For the
struggle to be successful, conscious people must
step forward and
guarantee that the political program our society
rallies around is the
program of the new class of the dispossessed.
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