Someone says he has read Marx.
You claim to having read Marx. Then you should have gleaned from the reading that the very first requirement for a worker is to understand his or her economic relationaship in a capitalist society. One would think that you would not have to delve deeply into Marx’s writing to grasp some of that. Be aware of your surroundings, Marx didn’t just conjure stuff out of his head, he was aware of his surroundings and a scholar of history. Do you fancy yourself a scholar of history. Idoubt that you are by a long shot.
The US capitalist economy came to screeching halt during the “Great Depression.” Why? The system was able to produce an abundance of everything for everyone. Well, why not, the capitalist class extracted excessive surplus value through exploitation of wage labor (what Marx referred to as “wage slavery”). In layman’s terms excessive surplus value means excessive profits. Here is the key to the rub. Pay workers more and they are able to buy more. Pay them less and they are able to buy less. All workers should know that the tendency of the capitalist class is to reduce its capital investment, socially necessary labor time (the hourly time a worker expends in the production of a product). It follows that all workers should know that when the capitalist class does that (try to squeeze blood out of a turnip) and takes his reduced pay check to the store, he can buy less of the merchandise. That is not a tendency, it is a fact of life exerted upon the worker by the voracious appetite the capitalist class has for profit.
What brought the US capitalism out of the depression was a great war (”the war to end all wars”!!!). But along with that came a major hitch. Who is going to pay for it. The more that the capitalist class foots the bill, the less their profit margin is–perish the thought. The capitalist class informs its governmental lackys, just charge it. Charge it to who or what? From thereon came about the floating of paper. But there is a limit to floating paper within the nation's banking system. With the great war, it was heaped upon by the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and all the other minor military expeditions. There came a time when the domestic float of paper became saturated (workers should know what a float is, with the use of computers, checking account transaction became almost immediate. Workers can no longer float, write out a check without funds in the checking account to cover it and hope to make a deposit to cover it in time. Even before the advent of computers, the worker’s float would be saturated quickly). Several years ago, the US started to stretch the float with foreign countries. In the beginning mainly with Japan and now heaped on with China. Can you imagine, dealing all those years with that “red scare” and now heaping upon our country’s float from that country, and the Chinese Communist Party is still intact! A corollary is the float (plastic) of the working class (commonally referred to as consumers), the vast majority of the country. Now with the saturation of paper float is added the saturation of plastic float. One doesn’t have to laboriously peruse the writings of Marx to see that. Just plant your eyes on the business section of the daily newspapers (be aware of your surroundings). The one thing that economists agree on is that the major element that drives the American economy are the everyday consumers, of course they shudder to say the working class.
As any worker should readily see, the country is in dire straits. The first order of the day is not to frantically dissipate energy thrashing the proposition of socialism. If a worker so fervently rejects socialism, then the logical thing to do is come up with a better proposition to put an end to the dire straits of capitalist economy. “Government for the people, by the people and of the people,” and “we the people,” lets us hear it. The silence is deafening.
http://socialismmarxdeleonforarealunion.org/index.html
Don
