In 1975, when the crisis hit, the trade union movement responded in the same manner as it had so successfully in the 1960’s. That is, each union fought the cutbacks and layoffs on economic lines as any union would with its employer. This basic response is one of trying to win concessions through, what we term as, narrow economic struggle. As we have seen, the rank and file in many cases was very militant, but their militance was around their individual economic demands.
What exactly does one mean when they say narrow economic struggle as contrasted with political struggle. Lenin, in What Is To Be Done, defines the economic struggle as:
The economic struggle is the collective struggle of the workers against their employers, for better terms in the sale of their labor power, for better living and working conditions.
Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. The sphere from which it is possible to obtain this knowledge is the sphere of relationships of all classes and strata to the State and the Government. (emphasis added)
Thus, a political demand is one directed against the Government as an oppressive arm of the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, a political demand which is correct should expose the relationship of various strata: reactionary bourgeoisie, liberal bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, working class, Black and Spanish speaking people–to the State. A correct political demand enables the working class to understand who are its allies and who are its enemies. An economic demand simply pits the workers against their employers. It doesn’t lead to an. understanding of the class nature of the State.
In NYC the State confronts the municipal workforce in two forms. The first is that the State is the political arm of the bourgeoisie, the State, for example, creates the Emergency Financial Control Board (EFCB), passes a Taylor Law aimed at preventing strikes, passes a wage freeze affecting all municipal unions.
On the other hand, the State presents itself to municipal workers as an employer. As an employer it negotiates contracts with each union, bargains over how many workers will be laid off in each union, etc. As an employer, a struggle against the City by any particular union is simply an economic struggle. Thus, when the Sanitation workers go out over their contract they engage in economic struggle. However, were the sanitation workers to demand the abolishment of the EFCB, or an end to the wage freeze for all workers, or call on the State legislature to extend the rent stabilization law those would be political demands and political struggle.
This view of political struggle and economic struggle holds that the key difference between the two is who the demands are directed against. When the workers struggle against a particular employer or group of employers that is economic struggle. When the workers make demands of the state, as a representative of the bourgeoisie in the political arena as a whole, that is political struggle.
Many people on the left have the mistaken idea that the distinction between political and economic struggle is that political struggle is against the Imperialist System or for Socialism, while economic struggle is around people’s day to day needs. Raising politics in the trade union movement, to many leftists, means bringing up the nature of the Imperialist System, or talking about Socialism. For example, if there is a strike against General Motors for higher wages, many people think that “raising politics” means going to the scene of the strike and discussing the relationship between GM and Imperialism, or discussing the nature of racism in this country and how it has held back the trade union struggle. Or they think about bringing up the idea that under Capitalism workers are forced to sell their labor power to the Capitalist, and therefore not wage increases but only an end to wage slavery can really solve the problem.
The trouble with this reasoning is that is sees political struggle as raising Socialism, or Anti-Imperialism in abstract terms. The struggle for Socialism has its concrete economic, political and ideological components.
Political struggle directs itself to overthrowing and fighting against the State around people’s most basic needs and demands. People will only learn about the nature of the Government, when in practice the Government is exposed by the masses of people presenting concrete demands to it and calling for action on those demands. Only in concrete struggle against the State around all manifestation of the Government’s oppression of the people will the masses come to understand political ideas.
Marx, in Letters to Americans puts forward the same distinction between political and economic struggle urged here. He says,
For instance, the attempt in a particular factory, or even in a particular trade, to force a shorter working day out of the individual capitalist by strikes etc., is a purely economic movement. The movement to force through an 8 hour law, however, is a political movement. (emphasis added)
Similarly, in NYC the struggle of one union for higher wages is an economic one. The fight against the wage-freeze law is political. The struggle of tenants against their landlord for lower rents is an economic struggle. The battle of tenants against the Government for rent control is a political one. Furthermore, the struggle of workers to extract from the State concessions affecting their day to day lives, e.g. police repression, crime, drugs, etc. are all political struggles.
Understanding this, the question becomes: under what conditions can the economic struggle alone be successful in winning basic, concrete demands, and under what conditions is it essential to wage a political struggle even to fulfill the immediate needs of the people? It would be determinist to say that it is impossible to win concessions from the bourgeoisie even in a period of intense crisis. It is almost always possible to win significant concessions from the bourgeoisie. The question is when is militant, narrow economic struggle sufficient to win those concessions?
This question is important in order to answer why the trade union and community movements are stagnating. Is the basic question one of more militance? Is the basic problem that the UFT, DC 37 etc. have not waged militant economic struggle? Or are there material conditions which necessitate a different form of struggle?
During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the unions and communities in New York could win militant economic struggles. Starting with the 1965 Transport Workers Union strike the unions won several victories from very narrow economic perspectives.
The key factor which created the conditions for the success of economic struggle in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s was the massive buildup of NYC debt. Presently almost 20% of NY’s revenues go toward repaying interest and principal on the debt.
However, not only NYC was going into debt in the late 60’s and early 70’s – everybody was. Cities and States across the country were borrowing like crazy. The Federal Government was going deeper and deeper into debt. Major corporations were borrowing more money. Consumer borrowing was up. Even the banks were going deeper and deeper into debt borrowing from each other, and using federal funds to keep the game going.
This massive buildup of debt fueled the prosperity of the 60’s and paid for increases in wages and services. It created huge sources of what was in essence fictional wealth. Just as Imperialism, in creating huge superprofits, creates the conditions wherein the labor movement gets thrown some crumbs, this debt expansion of the 60’s played a similar role.
Therefore, we must understand what caused this massive buildup of debt. The answer lies in the nature of the credit system under Capitalism and its relationship to the business cycle. Marx grapples with this problem in Volume III of Capital.
In the first phase of the business cycle, production is beginning to pick up and the rate of profit is rising. In this phase the credit markets are recovering from depression and industrialists are again borrowing. This corresponds to the period of 1961-1965 in the United States.
Marx explains that in this recovery phase of the business cycle, the type of credit which predominates is credit which has actual commodities backing it and which goes into furthering production. As Marx states,
On the other hand, in times of renewed activity after a crisis, loan capital is demanded for the purpose of buying and for the purpose of transforming money-capital into productive or commercial capital. (emphasis added) Capital, Volume III
Thus, the credit here has actual goods or industrial facilities backing the promise to repay the loan. In the cities from 1961-1965 we can see just this type of development. The debt was rising, but slowly. The main form of municipal debt was long term bonds used for capital improvements with the full faith and credit of the City or State backing the bond. There was very little gimmickry. Most of the borrowing was backed by actual tax revenues and was in fact going for capital improvements.
What happens when the expansion reaches its midpoint? In this phase industrial, commercial and financial activity have reached their most feverish heights. Our merry Capitalist is basking in a sea of profits, cheerfully proclaiming the end of the business cycle and depressions.
However, imperceptibly, under the surface something has happened. The appearance of prosperity continues, but a fall in the rate of profit will soon disturb the cheerful picture of prosperity. While the mass of profits are high and shooting ever upward, the rate of profit begins to fall. This is exactly what happened in the United States starting in 1965.
For example, in 1965 the four automakers, GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC made $20 Billion profit. By 1972, their total amount of profit went up 20% to 24 Billion dollars. However, because their total investment had risen tremendously, their rate of profit, or profit/total investment fell from 18% in 1965 to 12.5% in 1972.
Marx shows that when this phase of prosperity occurs, a qualitative and quantitative change takes place in the credit system. First, quantitatively, the amount of money borrowed and loaned greatly expands. Secondly, qualitatively, credit backed by actual goods becomes replaced by the speculative selling of stocks and bonds which may or may not have any assets backing them.
This development is partly the result of a tremendous accumulation of surplus capital in the centralized hands of the bankers. But secondly, it is a result of another process which Marx touched upon but never fully developed.
That process is, as the rate of profit begins to drop the Capitalists are forced to feverishly accumulate greater amounts of profit in order to counteract the falling rate. They try reinvesting by building new factories but that is not enough since their rate of profit on productive investments is falling„ They anxiously look around for new investments. A tremendous expansion of money-capital in the form of stocks and bonds gives the Capitalist the possibility of staging a coup, of making huge amounts of profit by apparently creating value out of thin air. In other words the Capitalist sees in the expansion of credit the possibility of creating value, not through the labor process, but through the printing up of money – capital, (stocks and bonds) which have no actual assets or value backing them.
How does the expansion of money capital help the Capitalist temporarily maintain the flow of profits? There are two reasons this expansion can serve to boost profits.
The first reason is when a corporation or Government sells stocks and bonds (what Marx calls fictitious capital), the real capital (factory etc.) becomes separated from the title to that capital (GM stock). Thus, it can appear that the stock has value even though the real assets that the stock supposedly represents does not exist. Thus, credit in its very nature gives rise to speculation where huge fortunes are made. As Marx states,
To the extent that the accumulation of this paper (stocks) expresses the accumulation of railways, mines, steamships etc., to that extent does it express the extension of the actual reproduction process...But as duplicates which are themselves objects of transaction as commodities, and thus able to circulate as capital values, they are illusory, and their value may fall or rise quite independently of the movement of value of the real capital for which they are titles. Capital, Vol. III, p 477
The New York City case is just an extreme example of this separation of fictitious capital from real capital. In New York the real capital involved is the taxes derived from the people. A tax anticipation note is nothing more than the title held by the bank to a part of future tax revenues. If there are no real tax revenues backing the note, it has no real value.
However, since the legal title is divorced form the actual tax revenues, New York City notes appeared to have value although there were no real taxes backing them.
Thus, these short term notes were subject to tremendous manipulation and were used to create illusory wealth. For example, in 1975 the city had $450 million of uncollected taxes on its books, which they used to sell $380 million worth of tax anticipation notes. However, according to a Congressional study, only $100 million represented real taxes which might serve as collateral for the $380 million in notes. Similarly, moral obligation bonds, which unlike regular municipal bonds are not backed directly by the general revenues of the State represented a way to borrow without real value backing the bonds.
While New York State long term full-faith and credit bonds increased 142% from 1964-1974, NYS moral obligation bonds increased 266% in the same period. Short term debt of all states was 5% of their total debt in 1965. By 1971 that figure had risen almost 10%. This figure demonstrates the tremendous increase in debt paper having little or no real value backing it.
Secondly, stocks and bond offer the possibility of huge profits unrelated to actual surplus value produced because, as Marx explains,
By the identity of surplus value with surplus labor a qualitative limit is imposed on the accumulation of Capital. This is formed by the total working day, the prevailing development of productive forces and of the population, which limits the number of simultaneous exploitable working days. But if Surplus Value is conceived of in the meaningless form of interest, than the limit is merely quantitative and defies all fantasy. (emphasis added) Capital, Vol. II
Thus, in industrial investments (real capital), profits are tied to surplus labor. However, with stocks and bonds, interest or dividends can skyrocket for a limited period without any addition al surplus value being produced. The rise of conglomerates in the 60’s was based on this principle, where through various bookkeeping and financial gimmickry a company was able to pay out phenomenal dividends and thus drive the price of its stock up, while having very little boost in real earnings.
This is essentially what happened in NYC, where NYC debt carried interest rates throughout the 60’s and early 70’s which, after taxes, were much higher than equivalent corporate bonds. Thus, huge profits were made which had no relationship with actual surplus value being produced. One analyst for Business Week estimated that for a person making $50,000 a year an interest rate of 6% on tax free city bonds equalled an interest rate of 18% on regular corporation bonds. More importantly, Dr. Tilford Games, VP of Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust Co. stated that these city bonds gave “higher after tax profits compared to other investments (corporate stocks and bonds).” (Commercial and Financial Chronicle)
The crucial nature of the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds to boost bank after-tax profits was brought out in the recent House Banking Committee hearings on the NYC financial crisis.
Evidence introduced there showed that, “The effective average tax rate for all commercial banks insured by the FDIC has declined from 33.6% in 1960 to only 14.3% in 1974. The dramatic decline in the average tax rate is in large measure the result of a near doubling of the ratio of other securities (which are mainly tax-exempt bonds) to total bank loans and investments. House Committee Report (emphasis added)
It is not surprising therefore, that the Bankers actively encouraged and urged this policy of Government debt expansion. For example, in 1969 an attempt was made in Congress to do away with the abuses of NY and other municipal borrowing across the country.
Mr. Carr, representing the Investment Bankers Association, testified at the House Ways and Means Committee hearings on March 11, 1969, “It is our observation that the cities rather than building up debts, haven’t built up their debts fast enough...
For example, the serious water shortage in N.Y.C. only a few years ago indicated that...they (N.Y.C.) should have issued more bonds than they did... From the viewpoint of the local governments around the country, if they have been guilty of any misjudgment at all, it has not been in the direction of issuing bonds to too great an extent and piling up their debts, but quite to the contrary, they have been perhaps too conservative in the rate they moved on public investments.
This is the representative of the major banks saying that NYC was too conservative in borrowing. He was saying it where it counted, not in a popular magazine or newspaper designed to sway people (every politician, even John Lindsay in 1965, campaigns against borrowing) but in Congress where at that particular time, government policy was being made.
Furthermore, none other than the illustrious William Simon the Secretary of Treasury under Ford, but at that time the mere head of the Investment Bankers Municipal Bond Committee, testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee on September 24, 1969, that removing the tax-exempt status of municipal bonds would hurt the municipal bond market, thus hindering the ability of State and Local Government’s to borrow. The clear assumption was that State and Local borrowing must be encouraged, an interesting contradictory position from his “hold the line on city borrowing stand” as Secretary of Treasury, a few years later.
Thus, both a qualitative and quantitative change took place in NYS and NYC credit. But this change was not unique to NYS and NYC. It always occurs in the middle of a prosperity and is primarily motivated by the drive to accumulate more surplus-value and not by union wage increases. In the 1920’s the credit expansion took the form of land swindles in Florida and speculation in the stock market. In the 1960’s the Government became the crucial agent in the qualitative and quantitative expansion of credit. In the early 1960’s at the beginning of the recovery, the rate of profit in productive activities was rising and the creation of fictitious capital by the state was not absolutely necessary to keep the prosperity going. In the twilight of a great boom, in the late 1960’s massive credit operations by the State become essential for the maintenance of profits.
In Marxist terms, what is the principal contradiction which led to increased borrowing, not just by NYC, but NYS, other cities and the Federal Government? The bourgeois media claims that the main contradiction was between the demands of the people for a decent standard of living and the lack of real wealth to satisfy those demands. The solution was borrowing.
Our position is that the principal contradiction leading to NYC borrowing was between the need of the capitalist class to continually create increased amounts of surplus value, and the fact that surplus value can only be created by productive labor. Thus, when faced with a possible fall in surplus value, the Capitalist tries to create value through credit and money. Whether through the stock market, through the Federal Government printing money, through the speculative Real Estate Investment Trusts that banks set up during the 60’s or moral obligation UDC bonds, the Capitalists and their Government tried to create value without the intervention of the labor process.
Now we are able to answer the question of why militant economic struggles by NYC unions could be so successful in the 1960’s. Tremendous debt expansion created the material conditions which smart, militant unions were able to capitalize on. In some sense there is a similarity with clearly imperialist expansion. Union struggles are not the cause of Imperialism. However, the super-profits gained from foreign expansion provide a material basis for a few trade unions to win small economic victories.
Similarly, the debt expansion of the 60’s was not caused by higher wages for NYC workers. However, it provided the objective conditions, by creating massive amounts of fictitious capital for militant economic struggle to win victories, and pry loose a part of that tremendous fictitious capital being created. The militant economic struggle itself set in motion more debt expansion and began to exert an independent effect on the creation of debt.
Let us take a concrete example of this process; the housing struggle. In the early to middle 1960’s Rockefeller and the State Government began to develop ideas for a huge Development Corporation boondoggle which would aid industrial development in the State at the same time fueling the fires of debt expansion. Rockefeller tried twice to get bond issues voted for this type of development. Twice the people of NY voted down the bond issue.
Coinciding with this development was the development of the moral obligation bond as a method to create debt outside of the usual NYS constitutional constraints. The NYS Constitution allows for referendum on State bond issues and mandates that the bonds have to be backed by the “full faith and credit” of the State. The moral obligation bond, which had been “invented” by John Mitchell in the early 1960’s was a way around these two requirements.
By the middle 60’s from the point of view of Rockefeller and the capitalist class, the need for new investment necessitated the creation of the Urban Development Corporation. Simultaneously, the urban rebellions in 1967-68 created the need for the State to legitimize its democratic façade. UDC fit in perfectly.
In the middle to late 1960’s the third world communities were engaged in militant struggle. Some of this struggle was very political, but of an unfocused and spontaneous nature. Importantly, white workers either were not supportive of the demands put forward by these communities or ignored them. Thus the struggle, though very militant, was not a united one.
However, the militant Black and Latin struggle forced the State to provide certain reforms in order to keep it within manageable grounds. The Black and Latin struggle raised the spectre of massive disorders in the cities. The State had to provide certain funds to the inner cities for such things as housing, day care, etc.
Today, that same struggle would create the same exact need for the State to legitimize itself. Thus, simply focusing in on the militant struggle, one could say that struggle would force the bourgeoisie to make concessions.
However, the need for the State to legitimize itself was not the only trend occurring in the late 60’s. This merged with the more fundamental tendency of Capital, the drive for profit, which as we have seen, was being threatened in the late 60’s. This fundamental tendency of Capital to always attempt to create more and more surplus value was driving the Capitalist class and their Government to create fictional wealth through the expansion of debt. Thus, Rocky, as we have seen, had been developing plans for a huge Development boondoggle, which would have created this fictional wealth, through the mechanism of moral obligation bonds.
The riots in the ghettoes after the assassination of Martin Luther King were the perfect opportunity for the State to perform both functions, that of expansion of value coupled with a legitimizing function of social do-goodism.
In 1968, the Urban Development Corporation was founded in the name of Martin Luther King and as a response to the ghetto residents who rebelled the night of his assassination. If there had been no protests, a similar corporation would have been eventually created, simply called an Industrial Development Corporation and making no pretense to provide low income housing. But the Black & Latin people’s struggle forced some of this money to be spent on low income housing. It was a victory which was won through forceful struggle.
The main purpose of the UDC however, was not to create low-income housing but to serve the needs of the capitalist class„ The UDC, as an institution that was to build low-income housing, appropriated almost $2 billion overall. Out of that $2 billion, approximately $834 million was spent on residential housing. More than $1 billion went into commercial projects, such as the Niagra Falls Convention Center, the Busch Terminal Industrial Park, etc„ What is an agency which is promoting housing doing spending almost 60% of its appropriations for commercial and industrial development?
Furthermore, written into the UDC law was the intention that its residential projects should be for “persons or families of low income.” After 15 months of study the Moreland Commission was unable to come up with a figure on how many low income housing units had been created by the UDC. As Mary Perot Nichols, former senior editor of the Village Voice wrote in New Republic, July 17, 1976, “Indications are that the figure (of low income housing units) would be so low as to be embarrassing.”
To summarize, through militant struggle people did win victories in the late 60’s. The little money that the UDC spent on low income housing, even if it was only 10% of the total appropriations of $200 million, was a victory for Third world communities.
However, it was the need for the capitalist class to expand the credit mechanism which provided a climate allowing militant struggle to be successful. Thus, under conditions of tremendous credit expansion, economic strategies are often sufficient to win reforms such as higher wages, or more housing construction.
But the go-go days of credit expansion can not be kept up forever. At some point the inevitable contradiction between real value and fictitious paper which only appears to have value forces itself through. The only real creation of value is produced by labor and not by printing masses of paper. The inevitable result is a financial crisis where fictitious paper loses its value and becomes exposed for what it really is, almost worthless.
Why this happened in 1975 in New York is a result of a complex set of factors. The split between the Chase Manhattan and Morgan banks, the international money crisis, the weakening of the Black movement, were all factors contributing to NY’s financial crisis hitting in 1975. But the fundamental reason allowing these different factors to play this role was the inevitable contradiction between real and fictitious value. The NYC credit structure, as a result, collapsed.
Now, enormous profits which could be created through the debt expansion of the 1960’s can no longer be created. In this period, the material conditions which made for the tremendous success of the economic struggle are no longer present. Militant struggle itself in many cases does not suffice. Although there is collective anger and militance, mere militance of one group of workers, or third world communities alone is no longer sufficient. Now, a political movement, consciously directed at the bourgeois state must be developed even to win the primary needs of the majority of people. Victories can still be won under today’s conditions, but in many cases a different form of activity, a united political struggle is necessary to win those victories.
Moreover, NYC’s crisis of credit has allowed a long term trend to come to the surface. That is the trend of the declining industrial base of NYC and the whole Northeast region. While the credit expansion fueled prosperity during the 60’s this trend, barely beneath the surface, did not rise to the fore. It is true that NYC lost thousands of manufacturing jobs between 1965 and 1975. However, the debt expansion fueled office building construction, new corporate headquarters, new construction such as the World Trade Center and new service and Government jobs. Thus, the decline of the manufacturing and commercial base of NY stayed submerged.
With the fiscal crisis, this trend has become dominant. The declining tax base of NY, the flight of industry to the South, the collapse of office building construction and whole skyscrapers like 1160 Avenue of the Americas lying vacant, are evidence of the long term decline of the Northeast region. This has now become a central focus of New York City life.
New York has lost 700,000 jobs in seven years. The decimation of the job market has added 10% of the work force to the unemployment rolls. And, for the first time since 1932, the City’s real property assessed valuation has declined, revealing a trend signaling the exit of capital from New York, to areas which provide greater profits. Yes, bank capital has flown to warmer investment climates. Industrial capital in labor intensive areas such as manufacturing apparel have also packed their bags and moved to locales where unorganized labor remains to be exploited. The automation of the printing field, containerization of the ports, indicative of the tendency of industrialists in the sixties to cut labor cost through the introduction of plant technology, inevitably furthers the decline of jobs in NY.
New York government officials aren’t idly watching the “Big Apple” decay. Their strategists are busy creating and instituting policies in line with the needs of the investment community. Elimination of the stock transfer tax, reduction of commercial rent and personal income taxes for the corporate elite are part of the scheme to stimulate the reinvestment by finance capital in this city.
However, for the time being, business and dollars will continue to leave and the decline will continue.
Therefore, the political response of the Bourgeoisie to this decline of New York City has been the development of a movement around planned shrinkage. Within the confines of this crisis the City carefully plans the allocation of it’s resources. Economic cutbacks of jobs, health care, housing, education, fire protection, our life supports systems are initiated. And so Bushwick burns! The needs of the NY economy have changed. No longer does it require a large blue collar work force. The City wants to adjust it’s services to a smaller and wealthier population base. It will use mechanisms such as the federalization of welfare to disperse its superfluous workers to other regions. As former Director of the Housing Development Administration Roger Starr put it, “Our urban system is based on the theory of taking a peasant and turning him into an industrial worker. Now there are no industrial jobs, why not keep him a peasant?”
Planned shrinkage, the encouraged, accelerated decline of lower income neighborhoods, in particular, is the bourgeoisie’s response to the fiscal crisis. The state has made its decision, it will not maintain the infra-structure of this city for people it no longer needs. The ability of the state to turn off services to whole areas, was aided by years of preparation by bank redlining policies, a tight housing market and institutionalized racism in production. These phenomena have facilitated the isolation of the Black and Latin workers to more effectively manipulate their movement in the production sphere. Control of the work force by containment and forced migration at certain times and what are inevitably genocidal policies are established by the forces that profit off the present form of economic crisis.
The merging of two trends, the crisis of credit and the long-run decline of the Northeast region has temporarily created conditions where in most cases even militant economic struggle will not be successful. The development of the political struggle is the principal task of the new communist movement at the present time.
How long this period of NY fiscal crisis will last, with the corresponding difficulty of purely economic struggle, is impossible to predict. It would be a fundamental error to assert that NYC can not get out of this crisis. There are no final crises or final collapses under Capitalism. Every crisis sets in motion the forces which temporarily enable Capitalism to get out of crisis. Only when the working people develop a political movement to seize state power does the capitalist system break down. On its own, simply given economic contradictions under Capitalism, the system could continue forever, breeding greater destructive crises, and then prosperous booms.
In NYC, the bourgeoisie so far has succeeded in extracting real wealth in the form of cutbacks from the masses of people in order to pay for the fictitious paper created during the 60’s. To the extent that it is successful in paying off that debt and deflating the debt structure, and successfully carries out planned shrinkage, the bourgeoisie will create the conditions for an enormous new credit expansion and new boom. Then, purely economic strikes will again be able to win significant concessions.
The fact that there is no final economic collapse, that there is always the possibility of capitalist stabilization means that developing a political movement to seize state power is the fundamental task of a communist party. However, in this period of time in New York City, developing the political struggle is not only fundamental but is the principal task facing communist mass work. At other times developing militant economic strikes, or developing organization may be the principal task of Communists in the mass movement. However, because of the conditions existing in NY not only is the political struggle fundamentally the way to revolution, but it is the key link in moving the workers’ struggle forward.
It has been the inability of the left to develop the political struggle which has produced the demoralized and weakened state of the working class movement. The material conditions, as we have demonstrated, make this period one of increasing difficulty of winning the economic struggle. However, if there was a left which could develop a political movement having the ability to strike fear into the State significant concessions could be won. The objective forces of fiscal crisis have merged with the subjective ones, namely the failure of the left to develop the political struggle. The result has been hopelessness and confusion in the working class movement.
We must admit this failure and not become demoralized but analyze its roots and chart a new direction forward. The key question is: why has the left failed?