We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The assault on US workers’ wages

from World Socialist Web Site

This article does a good job of illustrating how this globalization phase of capitalism is working its magic on US working people. 

The US capitalist ruling class whose wealth was created in large part by the sweat, toil, and creativity of US workers has become increasingly integrated with a global class of elites. To be sure, this global elite is being led by US capitalists whose military is by far the most powerful in the world. However, they all share the same interests of exploiting labor and the environment to enrich themselves and increase their power to insure their continued domination over working people and the earth. Thus the tendency is to have all workers in the world compete over jobs and wages so that capitalist enterprises get the best rates, hence greater profits. 

Therefore it is becoming less and less important as to where a worker lives than what he/she can offer employers for the least wages. For US workers this tendency has resulted in stagnant wage increases from the 1970s till the latest economic crash in 2008, and now we are beginning to see the decline in the wages of workers.

Have you noticed that whereas the barriers to capital movements throughout the world have been largely removed, control of the movement of workers has been sharply curtailed? 

Control of working people has always been in the interest of capitalists. When needed, they can always move highly skilled workers and others to serve their enterprises anywhere in the world. But when it is in the interests only of workers to move where the jobs are, the latter face huge obstacles. 


There are several reasons for this that come readily to mind. The ruling elites instill fear of foreign worker competition in order to keep wages low and also respond to these fears by passing onerous immigration laws, to cast blame onto foreign workers for the problems that domestic workers face, and to encourage the increase of desperate but "illegal" immigrant workers who are usually very compliant because they have no protections whatsoever.

Like Warren Buffet once admitted, "yes, there is class war and my class is winning". Well, they have been winning, but for how long is anybody's guess.