The giant monopolies, the largest and most powerful corporations in the world, have triggered an avalanche of new layoffs, plunging thousands of workers into dire economic straits and laying the basis for more cuts still to come. Undoubtedly, these cuts will reverberate throughout the entire U.S. economy and have worldwide repercussions.
On Jan. 27 three major aircraft companies central to the military-industrial complex — Pratt & Whitney, Boeing, and McDonnell Douglas — announced staggering cutbacks and layoffs. These cutbacks and layoffs signal the end of an era in U.S. finance capital.
They are telling the people at home — and abroad to some extent — that the trillion-dollar giant scientific and technological infrastructure of the U.S., on which the military-industrial complex is based, can no longer be sustained in light of the new international situation.
The raison d'etre — that is, the basic motivation for building the gargantuan military machine — was the so-called nuclear threat from the USSR. This is no longer sustainable in the light of the USSR's collapse. Indeed, the current Yeltsin reactionary leadership in Russia is only too eager to be a partner with, rather than an adversary of, the new Clinton administration.
The layoffs at Pratt & Whitney, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas were in truth held back in the search for a substitute for the so-called threat of the USSR.
But holding off on these layoffs and many others sure to follow is no longer possible. For one thing the market value, in monetary terms, of the military-industrial complex was diminishing from day to day as it became clearer to the rest of the world that the Cold War was over and the military machine in the USSR was rapidly diminishing.
In many ways the U.S. military-industrial complex has become a dinosaur that is not suitable for the so-called brushfire wars — a pejorative name for military intervention against oppressed countries and peoples such as now being conducted against Iraq, Somalia, Yugoslavia and other areas.
Unless the Pentagon makes up its mind to openly provoke its imperialist rivals — Japan or Germany — or the socialist Peoples Republic of China and commences a full-scale propaganda war in the kind of terms used during the Cold War, the economic and financial value of this mammoth military, scientific and industrial complex will continue to diminish.
This is as inevitable as day follows night. This is the real meaning of the layoffs — they could not be held back. And others are sure to follow. This must be clearly understood by the working class and particularly by its most progressive sections.
The layoffs in the military-industrial complex, however, are compounded by another round of layoffs that followed those at General Motors, IBM and Eastman Kodak.
The second round is led by Sears Roebuck and others whose businesses are closer to the consumers. Sears Roebuck occupies first place among the Fortune 500 retail and merchandising corporations. It is close to the millions of people, particularly in small towns.
Sears has announced it will lay off more than 50,000 employees. However, according to the Jan. 26 Wall Street Journal, the layoff may go far beyond this and terminate as many as 100,000. Sears employs 350,000 workers, so nearly a third of its workforce will be idled when these plans go through.
This round of layoffs gives the lie to all the claims made immediately after the New Year about how Christmas buying by the broad public was so impressive that it forecast an upturn in the economy. Had that been true, Sears Roebuck would have been the first to know it, since it has hundreds of stores throughout the country and sells its merchandise to a broad cross section of workers.
The Sears layoffs — the Wall Street Journal calls them dismissals — also indicate that the much-touted talk about a rise in consumer confidence was a false message. It is particularly important to note that Sears will close 115 of its 950 stores. Many of them are in small towns where living standards are lower and the chance of getting jobs elsewhere is slim. This will force a whole new layer of workers below the poverty line.
The "breadth and severity of the streamlining surprised even some of the harshest [Wall Street] critics, who in recent years chastised previous restructuring efforts as being too timid," wrote the Journal.
While the announcement of Sears' massive layoffs caused grief among the workers, it was greeted with cheers on Wall Street. Sears' stock began to climb immediately after the announcement of the layoffs.
The bosses and the bankers are concerned with maximizing profits. If that takes cutting the workforce by a third, why, so be it.
The Sears layoffs are significant from an economic point of view because they differ from the earlier layoffs at General Motors and the aircraft manufacturers. Those layoffs are mostly the result of capitalist overproduction. Some may be explained by special circumstances that do not immediately and directly concern the broader mass of the workers.
But the Sears Roebuck layoff is in the field of consumption. It indicates that the working class as a whole is in a crisis — workers from the poorest to the most highly skilled don't have money to buy what's been produced.
Even under the best of circumstances, of course, the workers get back only a fraction of what they produce, and the rest is utilized by the ruling class in the form of superprofits to be used for exploitative investment in the oppressed countries.
Sears is trying to explain away the layoffs as due to enormous insurance claims for hurricane damage as well as the cost of compensating its customers for auto repair frauds uncovered by the government after years of investigation. Important as these special circumstances may be, one can be sure they were taken into consideration by the Sears financial staff and they are not the basic reason for the layoffs. The layoffs arise from the malfunctioning of the capitalist system as a whole.
All throughout the history of capitalist crises, when the largest and sometimes most prestigious corporations go bankrupt or collapse, there are invariably disclosures of corruption. These are not accidental factors in capitalist enterprises but they are the invariable concomitant to the general operations of the capitalist system come profit or loss. Corruption is inseparable from capitalism.
It becomes plainer every day that none of the giant corporations, whether in industry, merchandising, banking or insurance, pays the slightest attention to Clinton's alleged program of job creation. Not one has taken seriously the need to "invest in jobs," "expand their enterprises," "get the country moving again," "end the stagnation," etc. It is as though they live in another world, free from any kind of pressure either from the administration or from the workers.
What we see instead is a deliberate and calculated attempt to downsize, dismantle and dismember the industrial and technological infrastructure of the big capitalist enterprises and reduce the workforce to such levels as would make the corporations profitable — regardless what this entails for the mass of the population.
The Wall Street analysts are leading the clamor for greater efficiency and streamlining. They greet the mass dismissals with joy, forecasting greater profits on the basis of dismantling these huge establishments and downsizing the workforce.
High tech like those at the big aircraft companies or IBM and Kodak mostly affect white workers. Without minimizing the pain and suffering these layoffs cause, it should not be permitted to obscure the glaring reality for millions of oppressed people — Black, Latin and Asian — who already are suffering the brunt not only of capitalist exploitation but also of national oppression. Unemployment in the central cities from New Haven, Conn., to Seattle has been high for years, especially among the Black youths.
Can the government — or more pertinently can the working class — sit idly by and watch this continue to get worse? It is like a spreading disease. It is bound to reach into every city, county and village, unless a program is constructed to combat this vandalism by the giant monopolies.
If Clinton is seriously considering a program to halt the epidemic of layoffs he should sign an executive order directing the giant corporations to cease and desist from any further layoffs and commence a recall of any already laid off. He should further demand Congress appropriate money to be used to employ the many youth in the oppressed communities and at the same time give priority to rehabilitating the devastated Black, Latin, Native and other oppressed communities.
There is no indication that the Clinton administration is ready to move in the direction of confronting the corporations. Nor is it because he and his advisers don't know what to do. Clinton has shown he is capable of using his executive authority to issue presidential directives (executive orders). He has done so already to reverse a number of reactionary anti-abortion measures and he has promised to sign such an order banning discrimination against gays in the military.
Congress is now in session. A request for appropriations to speed up employment, especially of the jobless youth in the oppressed communities, should be given top priority in the legislative calendar of the Congress. Indeed, the president could demand it be first on the agenda in the current session.
It would be folly on the part of the working class to depend on the capitalist Clinton administration to initiate and carry out any progressive measure on its own. A great deal depends on our own efforts. We must therefore ceaselessly, persistently and with the utmost energy pursue our objective of achieving revolutionary socialist solidarity in the struggle against racism, without which no consistent struggle against the Clinton administration and capitalism in general can be successful.
Last updated: 15 January 2018