The Reagan administration and the capitalist media would like us to believe that the crisis is over or at least that they “can see the light at the end of the tunnel.” But the end of the crisis is just as illusive as the solution to their troubles in Viet Nam was, and the light that can be seen at the end of the tunnel is the same light, the bright red dawn of revolution. The bourgeoisie points to the recent rise in profits and “praises the lord”, claiming that, now that the rich are extorting more out of the workers and foreign countries, we will see many more jobs since there is so much more to invest and the profit level’s rise will attract that money to “fund more jobs.” But this ignores all the fundamental characteristics of monopoly capital, which does not maximize profit from producing but from cutting production to jack up the prices. It does not invest to “produce jobs” but to increase productivity precisely by cutting the number of workers needed for each job and so throwing tens of thousands out into the street. And, very likely, the imperialists, when they make a new plant, will build it in one of the police states they have set up in Latin America, Asia, etc., or will put it in the US, only if I the workers agree to take a cut in pay to “make production here competitive with overseas.”
It’s no wonder that unemployment continues to grow, that the lowest it can get now in a period of “recovery” or “boom” is what used to be the highest it got at the bottom of recessions not all that long ago.[1] Persistent and growing unemployment is built in to the capitalist system, and, along with it, the growing overwork and speed-up of those still employed and the ever-worsening wages and conditions. The capitalist system must expand to survive and it can only expand if it can produce profitably. But profit is the unpaid work of the workers and so, to be profitable, the capitalist firms bust constantly cut the real wages they pay, ruin the workers, and thus destroy the very market they need to sell the products and realize their profits.
Faced with this situation, the capitalists have continuously intensified their attack on the living conditions of “their” workers, while attempting to blame the workers over-seas for the problems caused. Or they claim that it is all a “natural catastrophy” and no one’s fault. “There are no simple solutions”, but if the workers just bear with their “recovery programs” and tighten the belt for a bit, then everything will work out. Naturally the workers have never shown much enthusiasm for the theory that their “excessive” pages were the cause of the unemployment crisis. And, as time has passed and the crisis lbs gotten worse and worse even with all the take-backs, moderation and “new realism”, the workers have risen up everywhere in great struggles.
[1] It gets increasing difficult to really know just what the current level of unemployment is. Until recently it was difficult because of many tricks they’ve used to hide its true size: from not including many sectors of society, such as the huge population incarcerated in various federal, state and local prisons and jails, and those who have either never held a job or have given up looking for one or are simply not registered as looking, to not including those who work as little as 10 hours or less a week. Never ceasing their tricks, they’ve suddenly taken “unemployment down to the lowest levels ever” – we read in the papers. What was it this time? Excluding the military from the figures altogether? Or one or more other equally devious maneuvers? It used to be that they themselves admitted that “true unemployment” was easily double whatever was declared the “official” level. Perhaps now its pretty close to triple (or more?)??