Joe Biden’s Victory is Still a Loss For Humanity

By Danny Haiphong

Republished from Black Agenda Report.

The Biden-Harris administration is good news for corporations, cops, war profiteers and banks too big to fail, but offers nothing to save the people and planet from multiple crises.

Biden managed to defeat Donald Trump by a razor thin margin in yet another quadrennial contest over which section of the ruling class will exploit the people and the planet. But the results burst asunder the two most popular assumptions among Democrats about the 2020 election. Polls predicted that Biden would defeat Trump by a large margin in the electoral college. The opposite was true. Biden’s near defeat proved that no set of conditions exist where the Democratic Party can mount a resounding defeat of their duopoly counterpart.

More importantly, a Biden victory was always assumed by Democrats to be a victory for humanity. Think again. Biden and the Democrats did nothing to shake the halls of Congress in their favor. Nor did the Democratic Party offer anything to the masses to secure what should have been an easy victory over Donald Trump. With over 200,000 people dead from COVID-19 and tens of millions more left unemployed, Biden’s lackluster performance is more of an indictment of the Democratic Party’s legitimacy than it is a victory for humanity.

Humanity will suffer many losses under a Biden administration. Black America will likely suffer the worst. While Trump and his GOP allies waged open war with Black Lives Matter activists, Biden has promised to provide more than $300 million in federal funding for police departments to put down Black uprisings in a manner more palatable to the Black misleadership class and its white corporate masters. Black wealth plummeted rapidly under Obama and Biden’s administration. The current economic crisis, compounded with Biden’s lack of any plan to relieve the prolonged suffering of the working class, has already worsened the living standards of millions of Black American workers who never recovered from the 2007-2008 crisis.

There are many on the leftish wing of the Democratic Party that have argued Trump’s ouster will alleviate the suffering of humanity in several key areas. Some cite Biden’s willingness to enter back into the Paris Climate Accords, the JPCOA agreement with Iran, and the World Health Organization (WHO). This makes Biden more progressive than Trump. The argument has one fatal flaw. Biden is much more likely to use his institutional backing to change the form, not the scale of the suffering that the U.S. imposes worldwide.

Biden’s possible re-entrance into the Paris Climate Accords will be canceled out by his commitment to fracking. The possibility of eased sanctions with Iran, while extremely important, is not guaranteed and will be offset by Biden’s own commitment to imperialist plunder in the region. One cannot forget that Biden helped the Obama administration increase U.S. wars from two to seven. In eight years, Biden assisted in the coup of Honduras, the overthrow of Libya, and the ongoing proxy war in Syria. Biden’s commitment to the WHO should not negate his firm opposition to any single-payer model of healthcare and the large sums of money he receives from the very healthcare industry which has ensured the U.S. is without a public health system all together.

Biden and the Democratic Party are joint partners with the GOP in the facilitation of the ongoing Race to the Bottom for the working class. Wall Street donated heavily to Biden with full knowledge that his administration will continue to support the right of corporations to drive down wages, increase productivity (exploitation), and concentrate capital in fewer and fewer hands. Boeing’s CEO stated clearly clear that his business prospects would be served regardless of who won the election. Prison stocks rose after Biden announced Kamala Harris as his vice president. On November 4th, Reuters  announced that the lords of capital were quite pleased that no major policy changes were likely under the new political regime elected to Congress and the Oval Office.

Biden will inevitably rule as a rightwing neoconservative in all areas of policy. His big tent of Republicans and national security state apparatchiks is at least as large as Hillary Clinton’s in 2016. Over 100 former GOP war hawks of the national security state endorsed Biden in the closing weeks of the election. Larry Summers, a chief architect of the 2007-2008 economic crisis, advised his campaign. Susan Rice and Michele Flournoy are likely to join Biden’s foreign policy team—a key indication that trillions will continue to be spent on murderous wars abroad.

The question remains whether Biden can effectively govern like prior Democratic Party administrations. American exceptionalism is the Democratic Party’s ideological base, but this ideology is entangled in the general crisis of legitimacy afflicting the U.S. state. Biden’s ability to forward a project of “decency” that restores the “soul of the nation” is hampered by his attitude that “nothing will fundamentally change” for the rich. Biden also lacks charisma and talent. While millions were ready to vote for anyone and anything not named Donald Trump, four years of austerity and war under a president with obvious signs of cognitive decline is guaranteed to sharpen the contradictions of the rule of the rich and open the potential for further unrest on both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

To maintain social peace, Biden will use the Oval Office to consolidate its corporate forces to suffocate left wing forces inside and outside of the Democratic Party. The graveyard of social movements will expand to occupy the largest plot of political territory as possible. A “moderate” revolution will be declared for the forces of progress in the ruling class. Perhaps the best that can be summoned from a Biden administration is the advancement of consciousness that the Democratic Party is just as opposed to social democracy and the interests of the working classes as Republicans. Plenty of opportunities exist to challenge the intransigence of the Democrats but just as many obstacles will be thrown in the way of any true exercise of people’s power.

The 2020 election is yet another reminder that social movements must become the focus of politics, not the electoral process. This is where an internationalist vision of politics is especially important. Social movements in Bolivia returned their socialist party to power after a year living under a U.S.-backed coup. Massive grassroots mobilizations in Cuba, Vietnam, and China contained the COVID-19 pandemic in a matter of months. Ethiopia and Eritrea have agreed to forge peace rather than wage war. The winds of progress have been blowing toward the Global South for more than a century. The most progressive changes that have ever occurred in the U.S. have been a combined product of the mass organization of the U.S.’ so-called internal colonies such as Black America and the external pressures placed on the U.S. empire by movements for self-determination abroad.

The 2020 election has come and gone. What we know is that Biden is a repudiation of revolutionary change. Humanity will suffer many losses even if more of the oppressed and working masses become aware of Biden and the DNC’s hostile class interests. Trump was rejected by a corporate-owned electoral process just as Clinton was rejected in 2016. Politics in the U.S. remain confined to the narrow ideological possibilities offered by neoliberalism and imperial decay. Oppressed people must create and embrace a politics that take aim at the forces of reaction currently pushing humanity to the brink of total destruction. The only way this can happen is if Biden and the rest of the Democratic Party become the primary target of the people’s fight for a new world.

Popular Radicalism in the 1930s: The Forgotten History of the Workers' Unemployment Insurance Bill

By Chris Wright

At a time when unemployment is skyrocketing and millions of out-of-work Americans have been abandoned by the federal government, it may be of interest to consider how an earlier generation responded to an even greater crisis, the Great Depression. In particular, we might draw inspiration from the remarkable story of the now-forgotten Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill that was introduced in Congress in 1934, 1935, and 1936.

Despite essentially no press coverage and extreme hostility from the business community and the Roosevelt administration, a popular movement developed in support of this bill that had been written by the Communist Party. The mass pressure that was brought to bear on Congress secured a stunning victory in the spring of 1935, when the bill became the first unemployment insurance plan in U.S. history to be recommended by a congressional committee (the House Labor Committee). It was defeated in the House—by a vote of 204 to 52—but the widespread support for the bill was likely a factor in the easy passage later in 1935 of the relatively conservative Social Security Act, which laid the foundation for the American welfare state.

Aside from its direct legislative importance, the Workers’ Bill is of interest in that it shows just how left-wing vast swathes of the U.S. population were in the 1930s and can become when a political force emerges to articulate their grievances. This bill, which was far more radical than provisions in the Soviet Union for social insurance, was endorsed by over 3,500 local unions (and the regular conventions of several International unions and state bodies of the American Federation of Labor), practically every unemployed organization in the country, fraternal lodges, governmental bodies in over seventy cities and counties, and groups representing veterans, farmers, Blacks, women, the youth, and churches. In the West, the South, the Midwest, and the East, millions of citizens signed petitions and postcards in support of it. And this was all despite the active hostility of every sector of society with substantial resources.

It is puzzling, then, that historians have almost entirely overlooked the Workers’ Bill. For instance, in his book Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, Alan Brinkley doesn’t devote a single sentence to it. Neither does Robert McElvaine in his standard history, The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941. David Kennedy devotes half a sentence to it in volume one of his Oxford history of the Depression and World War II, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War. Instead, the less sophisticated and less radical Townsend Plan for old-age insurance, which was proposed around the same time and was widely publicized in the press, tends to monopolize historians’ attention (only to be ridiculed). The neglect of the Workers’ Bill lends credence to a still-dominant interpretation of the American citizenry during the Depression and throughout its history, viz. as being relatively centrist, “individualistic,” and conservative, especially in comparison with the historically more “socialist” populations of Western Europe.

Brinkley sums up this strain of thinking derived from the postwar “liberal consensus” school of historiography, which still influences pundits, politicians, and academics:

The failure of more radical political movements to take root in the 1930s reflected, in part, the absence of a serious radical tradition in American political culture. The rhetoric of class conflict echoed only weakly among men and women steeped in the dominant themes of their nation’s history; and leaders relying upon that rhetoric faced grave, perhaps insuperable difficulties in attempting to create political coalitions…

This is a simplistic interpretation. For one thing, there is a serious radical tradition in American political culture, as embodied, for example, in the Populist movement of the 1890s and the Socialist Party and IWW of the early twentieth century. But even insofar as a case can be made that “the rhetoric of class conflict echoe[s]…weakly,” it is plausible to understand this fact as simply a reflection of the violent repression of class-based movements and parties in American history. When they have a chance to get their message out, they attract substantial support—precisely to the extent that they can get their message out. There is no need to invoke deep cultural traditions of individualism or a lack of popular understanding of class. One need only appeal to the skewed distribution of resources, which prevents leftists from being heard.

In this article I’ll tell the story of the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill, both to fill a gap in our historical knowledge and because it resonates in our own time of troubles and struggles.

As soon as the Communist Party had unveiled its proposed Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill in the summer of 1930, as the Depression was just beginning, it garnered extensive support among large numbers of the unemployed. The reason isn’t hard to fathom: it envisioned an incredibly generous system of insurance. In the form it would eventually assume, it provided for unemployment insurance for workers and farmers (regardless of age, sex, or race) that was to be equal to average local wages but no less than $10 per week plus $3 for each dependent; people compelled to work part-time (because of inability to find full-time jobs) were to receive the difference between their earnings and the average local full-time wages; commissions directly elected by members of workers’ and farmers’ organizations were to administer the system; social insurance would be given to the sick and elderly, and maternity benefits would be paid eight weeks before and eight weeks after birth; and the system would be financed by unappropriated funds in the Treasury and by taxes on inheritances, gifts, and individual and corporate incomes above $5,000 a year. Later iterations of the bill went into greater detail on how the system would be financed and managed.

Had the Workers’ Bill ever been enacted, it would have revolutionized the American political economy. It was a much more authentically socialist plan than existed in the Soviet Union at the time, where only 35 percent of the customary wage was paid to those not working, and that for a limited time (unlike with the Workers’ Bill). Nor was the Soviet insurance system administered democratically by workers’ representatives.

By 1934, when the plan had become widely enough known to be critically examined by economists and other intellectuals, it was frequently criticized for incentivizing malingering. Defenders of the bill—and by then it was advocated by many left-wing economists, teachers, social workers, lawyers, engineers, and other professionals—replied that this supposed flaw was in fact a strength. By withdrawing workers from the labor market, it would force wage rates to rise until they at least equaled unemployment benefits. “The benefits to the unemployed,” economist Paul Douglas noted, “could thus be used as a lever to compel industry to pay a living wage to those who were employed.” It was the abolition of poverty and economic insecurity that was envisioned—by a frontal attack on such fundamentals of capitalism as the private appropriation of wealth, determination of wages by the market, and maintenance of an insecure army of the unemployed.

The Unemployed Councils were at the forefront of agitation for the proposed bill, but it was also publicized through other auxiliary organizations of the Communist Party, in addition to activists in unions. As mass demonstrations for unemployment relief became more frequent—daily “hunger marches” in cities across the country, occupations of state legislative chambers, marches on city halls, “eviction riots”—the demand for unemployment insurance echoed louder and farther every month. From Alaska to Texas, requests for petitions flooded into the New York office of the National Campaign Committee for Unemployment Insurance. United front conferences of Socialist and Communist workers’ organizations took place from New York City to Gary, Indiana and beyond. In February 1931 delegates presented the Workers’ Bill and its hundreds of thousands of signatures to Congress, which ignored them.

So activists continued drumming up support for the next few years. Hunger marchers in many states demanded that legislatures pass versions of the bill; two national hunger marches the Communist Party organized in December 1931 and 1932 gave the bill further publicity; delegates periodically presented more petitions to Congress, and campaigns were organized to mail postcards to legislators. Despite the fervent hostility and smear campaigns of the national AFL leadership, several thousand local unions eventually endorsed the bill, especially after it had been sponsored, in 1934, by Representative Ernest Lundeen of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. Its newfound national prominence in that year gave the movement greater momentum, and a new organization was founded to lend the bill intellectual respectability: the Inter-Professional Association for Social Insurance (IPA). Within a year the IPA had dozens of chapters and organizing committees around the country, as distinguished academics like Mary Van Kleeck of the Russell Sage Foundation proselytized for the bill in the press and before Congress.

Meanwhile, conferences of unemployed groups grew ever larger and more ambitious. For instance, in Chicago in September 1934, hundreds of delegates from such groups as the National Unemployed Leagues, the Illinois Workers Alliance, the Eastern Federation of Unemployed and Emergency Workers Union, and the Wisconsin Federation of Unemployed Leagues—in the aggregate claiming a membership of 750,000—endorsed the Lundeen Bill (as it was now called) and made increasingly elaborate plans to pressure Congress for its passage.

Congress took essentially no action on the bill in 1934, so Lundeen reintroduced it in January 1935. This would become the year of the “Second New Deal,” when the Roosevelt administration turned left in response to massive discontent and disillusionment with its policies. Senator Huey Long had become a hero to millions by denouncing the wealthy and proposing his Share Our Wealth program, an implicit criticism of the New Deal’s conservatism. The “radio priest” Father Charles Coughlin had acquired heroic stature among yet more millions by constantly “talking about a living wage, about profits for the farmer, about government-protected labor unions,” as one journalist put it. “He insists that human rights be placed above property rights. He emphasizes the ‘wickedness’ of ‘private financialism and production for profit.’”

The tens of millions of people who flocked to the banners of Huey Long and Father Coughlin—not to mention the Communist Workers’ Bill (or Lundeen Bill)—put the lie to any interpretation of the American people as being irremediably conservative/centrist or wedded to capitalism. During the Great Depression, arguably a majority wanted the U.S. to become, in effect, a radical social democracy, or a socialist democracy.

The hearings in 1935 that were held before the Labor subcommittee on the Lundeen Bill are a remarkable historical document, “probably the most unique document ever to appear in the Congressional record,” at least according to the executive secretary of the IPA. Eighty witnesses testified: industrial workers, farmers, veterans, professional workers, African-Americans, women, the foreign-born, and youth. “Probably never in American history,” an editor of the Nation wrote, “have the underprivileged had a better opportunity to present their case before Congress.” The aggregate of the testimonies amounted to a systematic indictment of American capitalism and the New Deal, and an impassioned defense of the radical alternative under consideration.

From the representative of the American Youth Congress, which encompassed over two million people, to the representative of the United Council of Working-Class Women, which had 10,000 members, each testimony fleshed out the eminently class-conscious point of view of the people back home who had “gather[ed] up nickels and pennies which they [could] poorly spare” in order to send someone to plead their case before Congress. At the same time, the Social Security Act—known then as the Wagner-Lewis Bill, since it hadn’t been passed yet—was criticized as a cruel sham, “a proposal to set up little privileged groups in the sea of misery who would be content to sit on their small islands and watch the others drown” (to quote a professor at Smith College). What most Americans wanted, witnesses insisted, was the more universal plan embodied in the Lundeen Bill.

Interestingly, most congressmen on the subcommittee were sympathetic to this point of view. For instance, at one point the chairman, Matthew Dunn, interrupted a witness who was observing that all the members of Congress he had talked to had received far fewer cards and letters in support of the famous Townsend Plan—which the press was continually publicizing—than in support of the more radical Lundeen Bill. “I want to substantiate the statement you just made about the Townsend bill and about this bill,” Dunn said. “May I say that I do not believe I have received over a half dozen letters to support the Townsend bill… [But] I have received many letters and cards from all over the country asking me to give my utmost support in behalf of the Lundeen bill, H.R. 2827.”

Many of the letters congressmen received were probably in the vein of this one that was sent to Lundeen in the spring of 1935, when Congress was considering the three competing bills that have already been mentioned (the Wagner-Lewis, the Townsend, and the Lundeen):

The reason I am writing you is, that we Farmers [and] Industrial workers feel that you are the only Congressman and Representative that is working for our interest. We have analyzed the Wagner-Lewis Bill [and] also [the] Townsend Bill. But the Lundeen H.R. (2827) is the only bill that means anything for our class… The people all over the country are [waking] up to the facts that the two old Political Parties are owned soul, mind [and] body by the Capitalist Class.

As stated above, while the House Labor Committee recommended the Lundeen Bill, it was—inevitably—defeated in the House. Being opposed by all the dominant interests in the country, it never had a chance of passage. But as far as its advocates were concerned, the fight was not over. Throughout the spring and summer of 1935 the flood of endorsements did not let up. The first national convention of rank-and-file social workers endorsed it in February; the Progressive Miners of America followed, along with scores of local unions and such ethnic societies as the Italian-American Democratic Organization of New York (with 235,000 members) and the Slovak-American Political Federation of Youngstown, Ohio. Virtually identical state versions of H.R. 2827 were, or already had been, introduced in the legislatures of California, Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and other states. Conferences of unions and fraternal organizations were called in a number of states to plan further campaigns for the Workers’ Bill.

In January 1936, Representative Lundeen introduced the bill yet again, this time joined by Republican Senator Lynn Frazier of North Dakota. It didn’t even make it out of committee this year, and was never introduced again.

Despite its failure, the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill was a significant episode in the 1930s that certainly hasn’t deserved to be written out of history. Both substantively and in its popularity, a case can be made that it was more significant than the Social Security Act and the Townsend Plan, its two main competitors.

*

As a coda to this forgotten story, which reinforces the lesson that most working-class Americans were and are quite left-wing in many of their values and beliefs, we might consider an unusual incident that occurred in March 1936. Earl Browder, head of the American Communist party, was, bizarrely, invited by CBS to speak for fifteen minutes (at 10:45 p.m.) on a national radio broadcast.

He seized the opportunity for this national spotlight and appealed to “the majority of the toiling people” to establish a national Farmer-Labor Party that would be affiliated with the Communist Party, though it “would not yet take up the full program of socialism, for which many are not yet prepared.” He even declared that Communists’ ultimate aim was to remake the U.S. “along the lines of the highly successful Soviet Union”: once they had the support of a majority of Americans, he said, “we will put that program into effect with the same firmness, the same determination, with which Washington and the founding fathers carried through the revolution that established our country, with the same thoroughness with which Lincoln abolished chattel slavery.”

According to both CBS and the Daily Worker, reactions to Browder’s talk were almost uniformly positive. CBS immediately received several hundred responses praising the speech, and the Daily Worker, whose New York address Browder had mentioned on the air, received thousands of letters. The following are representative:

Chattanooga, Tennessee: “If you could have listened to the people I know who listened to you, you would have learned that your speech did much to make them realize the importance of forming a Farmer-Labor Party. I am sure that the 15 minutes into which you put so much that is vitally important to the American people was time used to great advantage. Many people are thanking you, I know.”

Evanston, Illinois: “Just listened to your speech tonight and I think it was the truest talk I ever heard on the radio. Mr. Browder, would it not be a good thing if you would have an opportunity to talk to the people of the U.S.A. at least once a week, for 30 to 60 minutes? Let’s hear from you some more, Mr. Browder.”

Sparkes, Nebraska: “Would you send me 50 copies of your speech over the radio last night? I would like to give them to some of my neighbors who are all farmers.”

Arena, New York: “Although I am a young Republican (but good American citizen) I enjoyed listening to your radio speech last evening. I believe you told the truth in a convincing manner and I failed to see where you said anything dangerous to the welfare of the American people.”

Julesburg, Colorado: “Heard your talk… It was great. Would like a copy of same, also other dope on your party. It is due time we take a hand in things or there will be no United States left in a few more years. Will be looking forward for this dope and also your address.”

In general, the main themes of the letters were questions like, “Where can I learn more about the Communist Party?”, “How can I join your Party?”, and “Where is your nearest headquarters?” Some people sent money in the hope that it would facilitate more broadcasts. The editors of the Daily Worker plaintively asked their readers, “Isn’t it time we overhauled our old horse-and-buggy methods of recruiting? While we are recruiting by ones and twos, aren’t we overlooking hundreds?” Again, one can only imagine how many millions of people in far-flung regions would have been quickly radicalized had Browder or other Communist leaders been permitted the national radio audience that Huey Long and Father Coughlin were.

But such is the history of workers and marginalized groups in the U.S.: elite efforts to suppress the political agenda and the voices of the downtrodden have all too often succeeded, thereby wiping out the memory of popular struggles. If we can resurrect such stories as that of the Workers’ Bill, they may prove of use in our own age of crisis, as new struggles against authoritarianism begin.

The Portent of a Pandemic

By Kenn Orphan

Just months ago, few would have thought it possible that a submicroscopic ball of genetic coding could bring the world’s wealthiest powers to their knees. But it has. In the space of a few months the Covid-19 virus projected its spiky arms not only into the delicate cells of the human lung, but into the very membrane of the global economic and political order itself. The United States, being the emblem of this order, has also become the biggest example of its enormous failure. In desperation, the American Empire, the wealthiest and most powerful one humanity has ever known, is flailing in spasms and fits of insanity, denial and outright cruelty. It is robbing from its allies and client states masks and ventilators, as it lashes out even more furiously at nations which have defied its hegemonic control. And, while it bails out corporations and the richest industries, it has abandoned its citizenry to fend for themselves amidst a raging storm where nearly every “non-essential” business has been shut down, the for-profit healthcare system is beginning to buckle, the bodies of the dead are mounting, and the mass graves are being dug. Amidst this assault on humanity, there is a growing assault on the living earth itself. The US is rapidly stripping the last meager protections for the environment, accelerating climate change and the collapse of the biosphere itself.

Donald Trump, a leader that is rapidly approaching the malevolence of Caligula, presides over this plague-ridden stage of the American Empire. On his watch, nurses and doctors are left to wrap themselves in garbage bags as their only defense against the microbe’s merciless rampage. Governors are reduced to a bidding war against other governors for life saving medical equipment. Workers that are considered “non-essential” are left to figure out how to navigate the brutal landscape of capitalist predation, with few options available to them to maintain their health, food security or home. Immigrants and prisoners are being left in cages to die without any adequate medical assistance. Most Americans are now left in an impossible situation. “Shelter in place” even though they may lose their livelihoods and homes in a very short time. Millions are unemployed with millions more on the way. Millions have or will lose their health insurance since this fundamental human right has been tethered to employment and whims of the market economy, one that has been built on the mercurial and shifting sands of the so-called free market. Now that marketplace is in shambles. The government’s answer to their plight has been to toss them a laughable, one-time pittance of $1200, while hundreds of billions of dollars are allotted to the wealthiest corporations and industries.

As the United States outdoes the rest of the world in Covid-19 cases and deaths, the Trump administration is rapidly dismantling the last, anemic protections for its beleaguered ecosystems. Lands that protect besieged endangered species are now open to hunters and poachers. The largely defanged Environmental Protection Agency has, for all intents and purposes, been shuttered amidst this pandemic. Now corporations are free to pollute without fear of oversight or penalty. The air and water, so integral to human health, are in open season for these industries. Indeed, even as the pandemic seems to be clearing skies and waterways around the planet, the “titans of industry” seek to rapidly cloud them again with toxins for their profit margin. It is an omnicide for profit, encouraged by the corporate state, on full display. And as if to add yet another layer to this absurdity, Trump recently signed an executive order announcing that the US will mine the moon for minerals. Apparently, plundering our own celestial sphere isn’t enough.

With little doubt, the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed painful truths about the nature of capitalism itself. The sacrosanct liturgy of the “free market,” for so long lauded by its faithful adherents, now comes across as a vulgar joke in the face of the inhumanity we are witnessing. This should come as little surprise since it possesses no mechanisms to cope mercifully with the calamity of a pandemic in the first place, let alone the existential threats of climate change or nuclear war for that matter. It understands only mindless expansion of the accumulation of capital for a select few. But it is also encroaching even more aggressively into habitats where few human beings have been before. Forests are being felled at record pace, the ocean floor is being scraped away for minerals as I write this, along with a myriad of species we may never even see, and ships now ply the once frozen waters of the Arctic circle in search for petrol.  And with this reckless abandon comes our inevitable encounter with pathogens that are likely to be far more deadly and with which we will have no defense.

Indeed, as horrifying as it is, Covid-19 could have been a far more lethal plague, eviscerating any vestige of civilization in a matter of weeks. We may have been spared this time around. But with the ice caps and glaciers melting, coral reefs bleaching, locust swarms blanketing crops in Africa, and fires burning forests and fields to ash with more ferocity each year in Australia and California and along the Mediterranean, we are facing an even greater menace than a microbial killer. Climate change is an existential threat on a global scale, and it does not just threaten the human species, but all life in the biosphere. And given what we have witnessed in the past couple months, we should not hold any assurances that the economic and political order that runs the world’s affairs will be any better suited at addressing the harrowing predicament of a rapidly warming planet. True to form, they will continue business as usual only, as things get worse, they will ramp up brutal repression of civil rights and accelerate toward outright fascism.

Just this month, the US stopped issuing passports except in matter of “life or death,” a move that echoes past authoritarian regimes limits on the freedom of movement. While its population is reeling from a collapsing healthcare system and the economic aftershocks, it is continuing its cruel sanctions on Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, even as it threatens military action against those countries. And the echoes of its influence can be seen in many of its allies and client states. In India, Narendra Modi has ignored and sometimes encouraged the police who have persecuted and beaten the poor, Muslims and Dalits for non-compliance to quarantine restrictions which ignore their socioeconomic plight. It continues to ravage occupied Kashmir. In Israel, draconian surveillance technology is being used to track citizen’s movements. And it continues to collectively punish the open-air prison of Gaza. In Hungary, democracy has all but been dissolved, giving far right Victor Orban sweeping, dictatorial powers for an indefinite time period. In the Philippines, Duterte has ordered police and soldiers to shoot people who break the lock down, even if they are desperately searching for food. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has flouted the urging of health officials, endangering the lives and health of millions of people, and has encouraged radical Christian evangelicals in their genocidal aspirations to minister to uncontacted tribes in the Amazon who have no immunity to most western diseases, let alone Covid-19. Indeed, this pandemic has demonstrated the incompetence, cruelty, and despotism of the today’s global economic and political arrangement in stark ways, and it has indicated how this order will respond to the escalating nuclear arms race, continuing destruction of ecosystems through habitat loss and pollution, and the climate change catastrophes that loom on the horizon.

If there is anything to be learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, it would be that it is a portent. A miniscule sphere packed with laces of genetic strands that perhaps symbolize the power of knowledge itself.  It offers us a glimpse at how some governments are acting responsibly, like Cuba, for instance, who has sent medical teams to China, Italy and Spain. And how others, ones driven by the despotism of the so-called “free market,” are incapable of responding in any manner that is even remotely humane. The United States being the prime example. It also gives us insight into the power of nature and its ability to halt the very machinery of human society. But in addition to this, it offers us an opportunity to organize and act collectively as a species, even in isolation.

From the streets of Paris and Santiago, to the rainforests and wetlands of the Amazon and the Niger Delta, we have seen how ordinary people can arise and unite in solidarity against the barbarism of the global corporate state, whose omnicidal demeanor endangers us and the living earth itself. They continue to fight for the world we all deserve, the world we desperately need. We should take note of them now because, without a doubt, their struggle will become everyone’s in the years to come.

Capitalism, COVID-19, and Crisis: A Class Analysis

(Photo Credit: Mark Lennihan, Associated Press)

By Ikemba X

The Capitalist/Imperialist Class

In the past week, the global economy experienced its worst week since 2008 (following a series of “Worst Weeks”, it keeps getting worse), and the economic crisis is sure to deteriorate as time marches on. Three years of growth in the market have evaporated, unemployment has seen a spike, multiple industrial sectors have slowed to a crawl or stopped moving altogether, and the trillion-dollar injection into the market by the Federal Reserve did almost nothing to stop the free fall (other than transfer toxic assets to the public). If the recession hasn’t already hit us, we’re in for a catastrophe when the bills are due. The following is a brief outline on how we got here, and how much worse it's going to be this time around.

The modern capitalist economy simply cannot function without large amounts of fiat currency in the form of government-backed loans. As the bourgeoisie continues its song and dance of improving the means of production, increasing production of commodities, and better perfecting the division of labor, the price of operating such vast and complex industrial armies and machines is simply too much. In order to compensate for this massive cost, the bourgeoisie in the global core have forged an alliance between industrial and finance capital, exporting ever increasing amounts of production overseas, so that cheaper labor can be exploited. At home, the use of credit, loans, and ownership of companies into shares have allowed capitalists to continue their operations, though the market has grown more unstable than ever before. The financial crisis in 2008 drove capitalism to the brink of collapse, and it was caused specifically by inherent contradictions in the system. The rate of profit has continued to fall, production has become more expensive and commodities are produced in greater volumes for lower prices. Any panic in the market has a ripple effect, and the harsh truth is that a large majority of the world’s “wealth” is artificial, mere symbols in a computer program that rely solely on blind faith. If the bourgeoisie becomes scared enough to taking out its money and halting production, the whole rotten structure collapses. If not for the action taken by the Feds over the past few decades, including multiple bouts of quantitative easing under Obama, the global market may very well have imploded long ago. It took almost a decade for the economy to mostly recover from the 2008 crisis, for the working class a recovery never really came, and some of its effects are still felt in more isolated sectors of the economy today. 

Leading up to the COVID-19 scare, there was an already existing crisis in imperialism and capitalist production. Notably, the Trade War between China and the United States has had negative effects on the rival imperialist powers, who were willing to threaten economic crises while jockeying for hegemony in the world market. The global energy sector was also entering a crisis, with Russia and the OPEC countries at an impasse on restricting oil production, which had the effect of flooding the market with oil. The overproduction of commodities in this critical sector of the economy was causing problems for the bourgeoisie in the United States, who have responded by seizing oil fields in Syria and beating the war drums, threatening Iran with invasion. Meanwhile, European nations are experiencing a contraction of unified dominance as Brexit causes a fracture in European imperialism, and a potential crisis in the UK with the looming threat of a No-Deal Brexit. This would have significant ripple effects on the global market, as the UK is one of the largest economies in the world. 

It is important to remember that this crisis was caused purely through the anarchy of capitalist production. Once the capitalists were bailed out following 2008, imperialist plunder continued and the bourgeoisie recovered, leaving the proletariat to fend for themselves and foot the bill. This time around, production really has stopped, and the effects on the capitalist economy will be disastrous. The Chinese economy today makes up 16% of global Gross World Product, is the second largest economy in the world, and has the largest pool of cheap labor, as well as being a rising imperialist power, offering predatory loans to African countries. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, factories responsible for 70% of China’s exports have simply ceased to operate or have cut production massively, and travel to and from the country has been shut down completely. Several other countries have shut down massive sectors of their economy such as the airlines, and Italy has shut down its country altogether. Therefore, this latest crisis isn't caused by capitalists being unable to pay for their ventures, but rather there simply is no movement of capital, and no production of commodities. With this monumental economic halt/slowdown, we are staring in the face of a crisis the likes of which we have not seen in almost a century. The COVID-19 is sending the capitalist system into a freefall, and as always, the bourgeoisie and their governments will do everything in their power to make sure the workers absorb the brunt of this fall.

The Proletarian Situation

The situation in the United States is dire for the proletariat. For starters, there is a debt crisis, $14 trillion consisting mostly of mortgages, car loans, student loans, and credit cards. Deepening wealth inequality has accelerated the fall of real wages, and today (even before the arrival of COVID-19) most proletarians are in dire straits. Half of Americans make $30 thousand a year or less, and 70% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford a $400 crisis. Real unemployment was sitting at about 5% and has now spiked to almost 20%, and underemployment or those who have given up on finding jobs represent a forgotten sector that the US government is fine keeping in the dark. With the COVID-19 scare, layoffs are rising at an unprecedented rate, and those who aren't being fired are having their hours cut. In a country where health insurance is tied to employment, a pandemic which causes a spike in unemployment is probably the worst-case scenario for a proletarian.

The COVID-19 scare has also affected the mentality of the working class, who have begun panic buying commodities. This almost immediately resulted in a shortage of goods, which has ripped away the veil which hid the scarcity that does exist in capitalism, just like any other system. Lean manufacturing, or Just-in-Time manufacturing, provided us all with the hallucination that there was always an abundance of products for us to buy. However, after being put under pressure, the lie has been exposed for what it really is. In a nutshell, the transportation system has been developed enough that capitalists can rely on the nomadic lifestyle of proletarians in that industry. There is no large-scale storage of goods, but rather far-away sites that remain available whenever products are needed. Such a system is incredibly volatile, and any disruption in the distribution chain can cause an immediate and drastic shortage. We saw a glimpse of this with the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, when the natural disaster destroyed the colony of Puerto Rico. The result was that there was a global shortage of IV bags, since Puerto Rico was the hub of production for these goods. Now, imagine a crisis like this, but in multiple industries on every level of the production process, and not just based on production itself being shut down, but also on the transportation industry being paralyzed (like what we’ve seen with the decline in airline traffic and mass layoffs of truckers). China produces most of the world’s steel and, as stated before, their industrial production has been slashed in 70% of factories. And that is just one country. Globally, we are already seeing crippling shortages of medical supplies, most notably in Italy, the United States, and Iran, which has been the hardest hit of the three due to imperialist sanctions.

There has also been a growing trend of social distancing and self-isolation as a result of the pandemic. The cultural effects of this have the potential to negatively impact us all. Sowing fear and distrust of each other, the COVID-19 scare threatens to further divide us, further alienate us, and further fuel xenophobic and racist tendencies among white proletarians, as indicated by the recent uptick in racially-motivated attacks against proletarians of East Asian descent. This directly plays into some of the most reactionary and chauvinistic ideas in the US, expressed clearly by the Bourgeois slogan “China Lied, People Died” and scapegoating, such as labeling COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus.”

In December of last year, the service sector accounted for 97% of new hires according to the Labor department. Additionally, the US economy relies heavily on consumer spending, and while the rush on grocery stores and online shopping may offset this in the short term, less and less people will be able to sustain this spending as incomes dry up in the coming months. Couple this development with the above-mentioned fact that most workers live paycheck to paycheck, and we see a crisis in consumption of commodities, one of the basic causes of capitalist crisis.

In short, the situation looks bad for the proletariat. Congress can’t even pass basic measures, and the clock is ticking. There have been discussions in Congress about a potential UBI bill, but if this crisis continues for several months, one-time checks will not be enough to stop the bleeding. Successive monthly checks may stop the bleeding in the interim, but the ripples effects of mass unemployment are sure to carry well into 2021, if not multiple years beyond. In other words, we’re going to see a crisis the likes of which the world has never seen before.

What Can We Do?

There have been some policies proposed by Social-Democratic elements of the Democratic Party in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures proposed are attempts to treat the symptoms, and not cure the problem. Things like Medicare for All and nationalization of the healthcare system, as well as nationalizing any industries which seek government bailouts, do not get rid of the underlying economic problems which lead to the crisis we are faced with today. Medicare for All in theory protects us all from the virus, but we have seen clearly that the capitalist system of production and distribution has utterly failed the Italians, who have been hit by a chronic lack of medical supplies for their patients. In other words, what good will universal healthcare be if the medical industry itself cannot handle the demand. Currently, the for-profit system in the US offers less than 1 million hospital beds, in a nation of 330 million people. Additionally, our aim should not be to simply treat the sick. We must have a centrally-planned economy, with systems in place that prepare large storages of medical supplies we need for when viruses like this are unleashed on the world. We need an economic system that does not collapse after one month of a fraction of its production being cut. 

Activists should be cautious moving forward in their political work. The most important thing we can implement right now is Serve-the-People survival programs, specifically in terms of food and medical supplies. In doing our work, make sure to have hand sanitizer, gloves, and masks on hand for use and distribution. We should also not allow social distancing and hygiene practices to be spurred on by panic, and use them with clear heads, knowing full well that we are protecting the lives of others through these actions, not just ourselves.

The large-scale demonstrations are coming. No society can have mass unemployment and shortages of basic materials without intensifying the class struggle as a result. We must be prepared to go among the masses where they organize, and organize our own demonstrations, building strong links with the people. Go to the masses, learn from them, and educate them. Most of all, stay safe. Use the time given to us in this crisis to study theory from revolutionary teachers such as Marx, Lenin, and Mao. Do not hesitate, and do not be afraid of study. Study the conditions of the people. I strongly recommend we all crack open Lenin’s “What Is To Be Done” again, in preparation for the coming months.

Capitalism's Overproduction Problem: A Primer

By Prabhat Patnaik

Republished from Monthly Review.

It is in the nature of capitalism to have “over-production crises”, i.e., crises arising from “over-production” relative to demand. “Over-production” does not mean that more and more goods keep getting produced relative to demand, so that unsold stocks keep piling up. This may happen only for a brief period in the beginning; but as stocks pile up, production gets curtailed, causing recession and greater unemployment.

“Over-production”, in short, is ex ante, in the sense that if production were to occur at full capacity use (or at some desired level of capacity utilisation), then the amount produced could not be sold because of a shortage of demand. But it manifests itself in reality in terms of recession and greater unemployment.

It is a mistake to believe that such crises are only cyclical in nature, i.e., that they get automatically reversed after a certain period of time. On the contrary, the Great Depression of the 1930s, which was a classic over-production crisis, lasted nearly a decade and was finally overcome because of the war, or, to be precise, because of military expenditure in preparation for the Second World War.

Since 2008, there has again been an over-production crisis that has persisted with varying intensity right until now. There is, thus, no question of an over-production crisis under capitalism automatically disappearing. But what was striking about the erstwhile socialist economies of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe is that they were free from over-production crises. The question is why?

Over-production crises under capitalism arise because of two main reasons. One, investment decisions under capitalism depend upon the expected growth of demand, for which the current growth of demand is taken as a clue: if demand slows down then investment gets restrained. Two, whenever investment gets restrained, so does consumption and hence total income (this is called the “multiplier” effect of investment).

Both these factors were eliminated under socialism. Investment was undertaken according to a plan and not the dictates of profitability; hence, there was no question of investment being curtailed when the growth of demand slowed down for any reason. This is not to say that there were no fluctuations in the level of investment. These fluctuations, however, arose not in response to profit expectations, but for entirely exogenous reasons, of which, two in particular were important.

One was agricultural output fluctuations. In years when the agricultural output went down for weather-related, or some other, reasons, investment was cut, in order to prevent excessive upward pressures on food prices; correspondingly when agricultural output revived, so did investment. These investment fluctuations, however, had nothing to do with any calculations of profitability on investment; they were unavoidable even in a planned economy.

The second reason was the operation of “echo effects”. Suppose, for instance, that a whole lot of new investment had been installed in a bunched manner at a certain date, say the beginning of the planning period. These pieces of equipment would become due for retirement again in a bunched manner around the same time some years later, which would, therefore, push up the investment plan, and hence the real gross investment around that time, so that both net investment and replacement needs are accommodated. The investment figure, therefore, would not show a steady growth but would exhibit fluctuations. But these fluctuations again had nothing to do with any calculations of profitability; they arose because of past investment history.

But even when such investment fluctuations occurred, socialist economies ensured that they did not lead to fluctuations in consumption and income, i.e., those economies snapped the multiplier relationship that necessarily characterises capitalism. This is because all firms in the economy were asked to produce to their capacity, and, if demand was low because of investment being curtailed, then they were asked to lower their prices until whatever they produced got sold.

At these “market-clearing” prices, some firms would make losses, while others would still make profits; but this would not matter since both the profit-making and the loss-making firms belonged to the State, which could, therefore, cross-subsidise the loss-making ones from the profits of the profit-making ones. And taking both groups of firms together, there would always be positive net profits as long as investment was positive (even if lower than would have been otherwise).

This was a remarkable break from what happens under capitalism, and provides a clue to why output and employment fall in a crisis there. Under capitalism, a firm does not produce when prices do not cover costs; and when demand is low, prices do not fall, because they are “administered” through collusion among the oligopolistic firms. Instead, output, and hence employment, fall in order to equate supply with demand, and to eliminate stocks which might have got built up briefly.

The matter can be looked at somewhat differently. A fall in price, with money wages and employment given, which is what happened under socialism, meant a rise in the share of wages in total output; income distribution in short shifted in favour of the workers. Since workers more or less consume their entire wages, such a shift in income distribution in favour of the workers raised the share of consumption in total output. Thus, socialist economies never experienced over-production crises because even when investment fell for some reason, output was kept unchanged and the share of consumption rose to compensate for the fall in investment (through a rise in the workers’ share in output).

This, however, can never happen under capitalism because capitalists would never voluntarily agree to a lowering of their share in output and a corresponding increase in workers’ share, even in a situation of inadequate aggregate demand. This is why capitalism experiences over-production crises: income distribution here is a matter of intense class-struggle where there is no question of capitalists agreeing to lower their own share and correspondingly raise workers’ share for the sake of overcoming a situation of over-production.

The “multiplier” that operates under capitalism, whereby a reduction in investment causes a reduction in consumption and hence total output, occurs because of income distribution not being adjustable. The “multiplier”, in other words, is predicated upon the relative shares among capitalists and workers being given.

In fact, under capitalism, far from the workers’ share rising to offset the problem of insufficient demand, the tendency in periods of crisis is the exact opposite, namely, to cut wages and raise the share of profits, which, in a situation of reduced investment that brought about the crisis in the first place, actually compounds the crisis. A 10% fall in investment in such a situation does not just bring about a 10% fall in output, as the “multiplier” analysis would suggest, but a more than 10% fall in output, say a 15% fall, because an additional squeeze on consumption through a fall in workers’ share (via the wage cut) is further superimposed upon the reduction in investment.

The fact that the relative share of the workers is not allowed to increase in order to offset the tendency towards over-production, which is a basic characteristic of capitalism, also shows its supreme irrationality as a system. It shows that the system would rather have larger unutilised capacity and unemployment, i.e., a sheer waste of productive resources for lack of demand, than produce as before by avoiding this waste through giving more to the workers. From its point of view, wasted resources are preferable to using these resources to improve workers’ consumption. True, not being a planned system, it does not make such calculations consciously; but that is what its immanent tendencies amount to. Socialism avoids any waste or slack, such as is caused by a crisis, by raising the consumption of workers appropriately to avert it.

As the collapse of the Soviet Union recedes further into history, people increasingly forget that a system had existed there, which, notwithstanding its many limitations and defects, had nonetheless been free of unemployment, of over-production crises and of the irrationality of capitalism.

Prabhat Patnaik is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997), The Value of Money (2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism (2011).

When Fellow Workers Can No Longer Find Work: A Talk with the Long-Term Unemployed

By Devon Bowers

The following is an email interview with three individuals - Cayla, Carlos, and DR - who have been long-term unemployed. They talk about how their unemployment has affected them mentally and emotionally, and also question the idea of work being so deeply linked to a person's identity.

If you are okay with saying, what led to your long-term unemployment?

Cayla: Well, my unemployment wasn't intentional. I am a student. I have been since I left the Army in 2011. I was in the middle of working on a bachelor's degree when I got sick. I am schizoaffective. So, I had to take some time off school. I'm going back in the fall. Because I am a veteran, I get free education and a monthly stipend while I attend school, so I have no need to work.

Carlos: I work in an industry that has a very short span guarantee of employee, I work in the non-profit industry (for a lack of a better term). In the region that I live, South Texas, there are a good number of nonprofits which provide invaluable services to the community. Especially for an area with high poverty rates as those on the Appalachian region and Native American reservations. Funding for non-profits is usually tied to the funding source, which can be from local to national government grants, foundations, or university grants. The life span of grants usually range from one to five years and it is never guaranteed to be refunded. So as much as I love working in community organizing or community-building work, it is very tenuous employment. The times I was unemployed was because my service to a nonprofit ended due to no more funding or end of funding of program. The longest I have been unemployed was about 10 or 11 months.

DR: In 2014, I was working as a salesperson for a regional chain furniture store. They prided themselves on being "family friendly" and their ability to work with staff in arranging or adjusting schedules as needed or in case(s) of a family emergency. This was one of the main reasons I had been so happy to be hired there, as I was the main provider of my two young daughters at the time and in the midst of a somewhat messy custody dispute.

According to their records I was laid off because my sales were below target, but at the time my sales seemed to be on par with just about everyone else's, and the only real difference I could see was that I was the most recent hire. Also, it should be pointed out that at the time I was laid off, I was just shy of the end of my 6-month trial period, after which I could begin receiving benefits. You can draw your own conclusions from this.

Not long after I was hired my ex-wife moved approximately 2,000 miles away to Tennessee, leaving both children in my care, which meant I immediately went from being the main provider to the sole provider of my daughters - something I obviously had no say in. As a newly single father I desperately needed that job, especially as I couldn't even afford childcare as things were. Once let go, I was forced to be even pickier for which jobs I applied. I could no longer accept any other job like say, fast food work, or another minimum-wage or part-time job… that is, unless they knew my story beforehand and were willing to work with me and possibly whomever else also took a chance and hired me, which was already not likely.

Plus, given the large amount of teenagers and retirees in my town who obviously made much better part-time or minimum-wage workers than me, this was basically impossible. Let me tell you, though, I tried and I tried with gusto - my children's livelihood was/is on the line. I could not and can not afford to feed my kids on California's minimum wage. California, as I'm sure you're aware, is one of the highest cost-of-living states.

So, after everything I just detailed, I enrolled in CalWorks - California's form of general assistance. I was already receiving SNAP (food stamps) while working at the furniture store, because again, even with minimum-wage plus commission, I could still not afford food for my family

I was recently listening to a podcast where it was mentioned that the idea of personhood has been linked to work, that in working, we in a way prove that we are people. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think that on a societal level that's true? Do you still accept that notion or have you moved on and if so what made you start to reject the idea that work equals personhood?

Cayla: I think our society stresses the notion of work = personhood because we are capitalist. We worship the dollar bill, therefore we associate exploitation with identity. None of us are what we do, we just spend a large part of our day being exploited. I don't need to be exploited to feel like a whole person.

Carlos: This is an idea that you can trace to most ancient societies once they settled into economic classes. The idea of what you do (work, skills) is who you are. In the United States, this is drilled into our psyche. Not only does work reflect us, but the idea that you must be working in or be employed in order to have worth as a person. Fortunately, for me, I am a red diaper baby. So my parents inculcated in me with a different view of the world than the one schools, peers, institutions promote.

DR: Let me say this, the idea that personhood equals value, with value equating work, is absurd. You are a human being, and therefore have intrinsic value because you exist. Not the kind of value that says whatever you can contribute to others equates to what kind of person you are; how you should be treated or where you fall on the scale of who matters and how much.

As Human Beings, we are entitled to life, liberty, and property. Property falls under the label of labor; labor is property. Life includes healthcare -- ALL healthcare: mental and emotional care is the upkeep of our minds and brain; teeth and eyes are parts of our physical body that need upkeep, therefore mental, emotional, dental, and eye care are included in healthcare as well. Life also includes education, childcare, food, clothes, and shelter - these all contribute to the upkeep of our lives.

Last but certainly not least, liberty is (but should be so much more than just) the choice between working to receive what is little more than a slave wage or starving. Which, in all actuality, is not liberty because the idea that it's a choice is a joke in the worst form. It is not a choice, and it is not liberty. The idea that value equals work which equates to personhood is ridiculously able-ist in construct. There are many, many people who cannot physically work… does that take away their personhood? What an archaic, classist, able-ist construct of thinking. This isn't 10,000 years ago, I believe we can and SHOULD evolve from that ancient, unreasonable, dusty form of "Social Darwinism" or "Natural Selection." We are modern humans living in the modern age. I wholeheartedly believe that "from each according to their ability to each according to their need" is fundamentally the best idea and construct for our society and ourselves.

The entire time I have been unemployed, I have not remained idle. I have labored. Intensely. I have: raised my children, grown gardens in my backyard in a step towards self-sufficiency, I have worked my family member's land and houses. I have done handiwork in my own home. I have constructed things. I have educated people, adults and children on a multitude of different issues. While on CalWorks, I have gone to college, increasing my own knowledge, and working towards my goal of becoming an educator; a history teacher to be specific. I have volunteered with countless organizations, including Western Service Workers Association (WSWA), which is a mutual aid organization and a "para-union", or a union for non-unionized workers, like IHSS workers or farmworkers. I am currently a coordinator for their food procurement program, which entails me going to different grocery markets and taking donations for our food bank, so that it may be fully stocked and ready to help other families and individuals in need. I have become an organizer for the Socialist Party USA (SPUSA).

I have organized protests against the DAPL and other such pipelines. I have organized demonstrations in support of universal healthcare. I have organized demonstrations of solidarity with the LGBT community when our local mega-church Bethel openly declared themselves a hate group in support of conversion therapy and told their congregation to vote against a CA Assembly bill which would grant members of the LGBT community greater access to healthcare and would ban the practice of billing people for conversion therapy.

I have organized food drives and supply drops for the homeless, and poor working class families like ours. Most importantly, I have been the in-home caretaker of my partner, and mother to our new son, who suffers from PTSD, agoraphobia, and panic disorder, due to rape-trauma, multiple sexual assaults, including while she was a child. I have witnessed the ableism she has encountered- from her own family no less. We are currently in the process of having me added as an official IHSS worker on payroll, which would end my long spell of unemployment. I have been working this entire time. I am proud of the work I have done.

What are some of the psychological and emotional effects that have been caused by your long-term unemployment? Have any of these problems spilled over and started affecting you physically?

Cayla: My psychological problems are likely caused by my disorder, but I experience a lot of boredom. I have a severe lack of motivation, so even the simplest chores are hard work for me. This has led to a feeling of emptiness that may be associated with a lack of direction or an existential crisis. Anyhow, not working can become boring, if you don't engage in some kind of hobby. I gained weight, though, again, this could be the schizoaffective disorder and the meds I have been put on. My health has suffered, my Dr. gave me some bad news: pre-diabetes and high cholesterol.

Carlos: It is a very stressful time when you are unemployed. Even more so when you have a family. Not only do you depend on your livelihood, but also your spouse and child. When I was unemployed, it created a lot of stress. Each & every day. Not knowing how you are going to pay for rent, utilities, etc. Knowing that you need to keep your core of living expenses to make sure you can make it through. For example, making sure you have enough to pay the phone bill so you can still be connected for interviews, etc. From when you wake up to when you go to bed and hoping you were able to survive that day. And physically it's even worse since you lose your health insurance and you're a diabetic like me. Meds become a luxury, but knowing you need them in order to get to old age.

DR: The psychological and emotional effects of my long-term unemployment have mostly been encountering the ableist and classist constructs of people in society who do believe that as long as I am not officially "working" that my life and myself are meaningless. There is anger. There is resolve and determination to keep working towards the abolition of such a cruel, self-serving, greedy, hateful society.

What are your thoughts on universal basic income? Do you think it could provide something of a cushion for you?

Cayla: I think it's a wonderful idea, though I'm unsure how effective it would be in practice. I've read that it may be ineffective because if it were ever put into place, the resulting price increases would basically render it useless. I have a pension from the VA, so I know how wonderful it can be to have a bit of security. I wish this for everyone, though I'm not sure that a universal income is the way to get there. While I have my doubts, if I were forced to choose now, I would give everyone a universal income. I want everyone to have the opportunity to pursue their passions and chase their dreams.

Carlos: Honestly, I do not know much about the movement or proposal. I have read different variations of it. As a quick reform, it sounds promising. I do think in the immediate, what we would need is to make sure we a) fund unemployment insurance better, b) make sure that the level of unemployment insurance is of a level good enough to live on while also making sure that it is there as long as the person is looking for a job, and c) making sure the unemployed have access to health insurance. I would add that as a democratic socialist, a UBI still doesn't do away with the exploitation of the capitalist on the working class. The end goal is not to reform capitalism, but to birth a new society not based on class exploitation.

DR: Universal Basic Income can only be a good idea if it does not come in place of free healthcare, or education, or food stamp benefits. As it is now, proponents of UBI are suggesting $1000. If you live in CA, you'd be lucky if that even covered rent, let alone food and other necessities. The fact that big CEO's like Mark Zuckerburg, Elon Musk, and more are starting to come around to UBI should be alarming to the working class. They say it will be necessary because automation will replace countless jobs. Now if those jobs are gone forever, you can't call UBI supplemental, it will be the only source of income for working class families to live off of. I've even seen some republicans come around to it, but saying they'd want it to replace food stamps and medical coverage. So UBI by itself, or replacing other benefits would ultimately be destructive to the working class. I would, however, support a UBI that a working class family could actually live on. Along with Universal Healthcare for all, free education from Preschool through College for all, a Job Guarantee for those who are able to work, cost of living controls, and a minimum wage that could sustain a family, and a maximum wage of no more than 10x the minimum. Then, and only then, would UBI be a good idea. Technology has the opportunity to free us from work for necessity, and could free us to working for passion and fulfillment, only if it is hands of the People, and not the elites.

What do you think of a federal job guarantee?

Cayla: Again, I'm not very well versed on the subject, but with my limited knowledge, I would choose to have one. I don't know how effective they have been in the past, but the idea sounds great. I am disabled from the Army. That's how I receive my pension. I am limited as to how many hours or how physically demanding a job can be. It would be nice if the government could guarantee me a good part-time job with benefits. As I understand it, some countries are moving to shorter work days, due to overproduction. We don't need to be constantly working and producing so much. We are destroying the planet doing it. Perhaps if the gov't guaranteed everyone work, we could limit our own work days. If everyone worked together, rather than competing, we could all work less.

Carlos: I think a federal job guarantee should be tied in closely with the aforementioned response. I do think this reform is more viable and easier for mainstream folks to understand and back. This is one proposal from Sen. Sanders, but has been around since the '70s.

DR: As I stated above a Federal Job Guarantee would be useful, if coupled with the following services; UBI, Universal healthcare for all, free education from Preschool through College for all, cost of living controls, a minimum wage that families could live on, and a maximum wage of no more than 10x the minimum. These reforms must exist together if they are to truly benefit the working class.

"Why Don't You Just Get a Better Job" and Other Dumb Shit People Say to Low-Income Earners Stuck in Precarious Work

By Chloe Ann King

For most of my working life I have been stuck in the hospitality industry which is lowly paid, painfully precarious and poorly regulated. In New Zealand, where I live, hospitality employers mostly treat you as nothing more than an easily replaceable unit to turn-over-profit. I have spent over a decade in this industry and as such I have become acutely aware of the fact that no matter how many shifts I work or how many poorly paid jobs I undertake; I will never have enough money to meet rising living costs.

Sometimes, my life is a bit depressing. You know what I mean? I get up, I go and work one of my multiple jobs and I come home. Each week I check my bank balance and I feel pretty put-out about how low my pay is as compared to how hard I worked for it.

Obviously, working hard at minimum wage jobs is never going to land me economic security. No matter how hard I have worked in the hospo industry I have never ever received a pay-rise, not once. The lie of "hard work" serves to convince us that if we fail to achieve happy, healthy and joy filled lives which are economically secure thanks to well paid jobs, it is because we failed to work hard enough for it. Constantly we are told that external factors do not affect us. This type of pervasive 'positive' rhetoric isendlessly used by many self-help Gurus such as Tony Robbins, one of America's most well-known motivational speakers.

The lie of "hard work" is pitched to us - those from the working and lower classes, by not only self-help gurus and spiritualists but politicians and well intentioned high school teachers and even our parents, as being one of the best paths to prosperity. This myth is perpetuated and disseminated by the mainstream media as motivational newsworthy 'human interest' stories. However, there is very little which is human about these types of stories. The core of these news pieces has nothing to do with humanity or being human and everything to do with selfishness and individualism and play on insecurities and our need to compare our lives to others who we think or we are passive aggressively told, have it better than us.

A few months ago the NZ Herald (New Zealand's most read newspaper which controls the national narrative) ran yet another one of these "motivational" articles on a young landlord named Gary Lin. Who has managed to buy up a staggering eleven properties citing "hard work" as a reason for his success. He told the NZ Herald,

"Work hard, work smart, save hard, and invest smart. Wealth creation is not rocket science - perseverance and hard work can get you there."

As if wealth creation is something we should as young people, be aspiring to. In times of great wealth inequality, we should be demanding wealth dispersal not setting out to create and covet wealth for ourselves. Gary, unlike most of us, was given a hefty "leg up" or what we poor folk call a "handout" by his father in the sum of $200,000 as a wedding gift which allowed him to buy his first home which cost him $175,000. I guess for some people money really does grow on trees.

I hate to break it to you Gaz - can I call you Gaz? But "hard work" had nothing to do with your successes in life.

Gaz got lucky. He won the genetic lottery and was born into wealth - he did not earn the money that helped him buy his first home. It was given to him. Instead of using his unearned wealth to help others he made the choice to punch-down and profit off the growing number of people stuck in the rental trap by hoarding properties. Gaz has engaged in predatory behavior by renting his properties out at market rental rates. In an unregulated rental market the odds are never in favor of tenants. As George Minbiot wrote for the Guardian, "Rent is another term for unearned income."

People like Gaz rarely acknowledge their economic success is at the expense of those from the lower and working classes. To recognize this Gaz, might have to feel a little bit bad about how he came into his millionaire property portfolio. He might have some kind of world shattering epiphany that he is not as smart as he believes and his successes are owed more to an ability to stomach the ruthless actions and attitudes needed to 'make it' in a society that is quickly turning into a dystopian one. Which makes The Hunger Games, look like child's play. Sociopathy and luck had more to do with Gaz's successes in life than actual "hard work", talent and intelligence.

Lawyer and anti-poverty activist David Tong, responded to Gaz's flawed belief that anyone can own property if they just "work hard" enough, with these words:

"Motivational read from the NZ Herald: You too can be a rich property investor. If dad gives you a $200,000 gift"

"Hard work" and motivation don't mean shit in a broken economy that was built on the blood, backs and bones of the working class and the most marginalized and vulnerable. Increasingly, accessing upward mobility - which buying property can help you obtain as well as a better quality of life, is becoming an impossible task because of low wages, insecure work and a flooded job market. People are just struggling to get off minimum wage let alone save for a house.

***

The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions states that "At least 30% of New Zealand's workers - over 635,000 people - are in insecure work. We believe it may well cover 50% of the workforce." No matter how hard you work it is impossible to get ahead when your employer only offers you inconsistent hours and denies your basic right to a guarantee of minimum hours.

Casual contracts are used widely within the hospitality and service industries and state that your employer owes you "no minimum of hours." But the expectation is that you will cover and come in when needed and if you refuse you are often faced with penalties. Such as having your shifts cut the next week. Having the stability of a salary as opposed to waged work is a far off dream for so many of us. You can't budget let alone save money for a house when you never know what your pay-check is going to be from one week to the next.

Economic insecurity because of cut shifts and insecure hours has been a major feature of my working life. For example, last year just before Christmas I had my shifts cut in half. I went from working between four and five shifts a week down to only two. I was given six days' notice and when I pointed out how hard this would hit me economically to a Duty manager I was told, "I should go and find a second job" and reminded that "I was only on a casual contract so there was not much I could do about it."

For the last few months I had been back-breakingly flexible for this employer. I had come in whenever I was needed and covered shifts at short notice. I had worked hard to make every customer's experience an enjoyable one, all this for minimum wage. I spent most of December desperately scrounging around for a second job, as did two other workers who had suffered the same fate.

I popped into the same work soon after my shifts had been cut to collect my tips and one of the regulars who had been drinking, accosted me verbally and demanded to know why I was in such vocal support of the recent rolling strikes of Bunnings Warehouse workers. These workers had been subject to Zero Hour contracts, eternal bullying and harassment from managers and no guarantee of shifts or rosters. He said "why don't these Bunnings workers just go out and get a better job". This statement coming from a white male Baby Boomer who enjoyed free tertiary education and did not start his working life off in debt. All is crimson and gold in middle class Whiteywood, I guess.

"Why don't you just go and get a better job?" This singular narrative epitomizes the ignorant attitudes of people like Gaz and the regular from my work whose name is ironically Gary, as well. It also puts the sole responsibility of finding well paid and meaningful work onto the worker, while absolving a government's responsibility to push for job creation which serves their citizenry and the environment and to raise the minimum wage to a living wage, in New Zealand.

If over 30% of the workforce is stuck in precarious work and large sectors of the workforce earn below Aotearoa's living wage of $19.25 an hour, finding "better work" is statistically impossible for a vast majority of us. There are thousands of hospitality businesses in Auckland, New Zealand, and only a handful pay a living wage and nearly none offer a guarantee of hours. As such telling people to "get a better job" is like telling them to buy a lotto ticket and live in hope they take out the jackpot.

***

No matter what the Gaz's, Gary's and the self-help superstars such as Tony Robbins of this world have to say on the myth of "hard work" and perseverance paying off one day, the reality is our ability to access upward mobility; buy a house; obtain a decent standard of living is tied to what type of work you can access. External factors not only deeply impact people's lives they oppress those who do not benefit from certain types of privilege. Not all roads lead to Rome. More often than not for us poor folk they lead to roadblocks and hurdles that increase based on the colour of your skin, the class you were born into and/or your gender, how bodily abled you are and your sexuality or a combination of all of these.

People's situations are complicated and difficult and cannot be curtailed into passive aggressive motivational "one liners" that nearly always punch-down and not up. Our working class struggles cannot be solved by a set of self-help rules or keys or steps which are meant to guide anyone to economic stability and lead you to the life of your dreams and a perfect job. In the book, The New Soft War on Women, the chapter entitled 'Doing Well May Not Work Out So Well', Caryl Rivers and Rosaling C. Barnett, write,

"We like to believe that the workplace is fair and that if we do a good job, we will be rewarded. After all, that's the American way. But this belief is less true for women than it is for men. Indeed, too often women's performance which is stellar gets fewer rewards than men do - even men who are less than outstanding."

During a major speech at Wellesley College, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, talked about the role women can play in politics and public life, she said,

"We know we've got to keep pushing at that glass ceiling. We have to try and break it… Obviously. I hope to live long enough to see a woman elected president of the United States."

Encouraging women to break the glass ceiling is all well and good but what if moving off minimum wage and accessing a living wage, is no easy feat? In America alone, 6 out of every 10 women are stuck on minimum wage.

The Glass Ceiling is so high up most of us can barely even see it. Researchers at the non-profit group Catalyst point out, "[…] when you start from behind, it's hard enough to keep pace, never mind catch up-regardless of what tactics you use." Both Rivers and Barnett went on to write,

"Doing all the right things to get ahead-using those strategies regularly suggested in self-help books, coaching sessions and the popular press-pays off much better for men than it does for women."

As women, we do not struggle to "get ahead" because of personal failings but this struggle is born from structural sexism which creates gendered inequality.

Telling white women and women of colour to be more ambitious and just "work harder" if they want to smash the Glass Ceiling and obtain a decent standard of living is almost laughable. Considering many women, in particular, indigenous women and women of colour, are still struggling to make it out of the basement. Still, self-help gurus such as Tony Robbins preach to millions that none of what I am writing about actually matters: race, gender… whatever you were born as, and into, does not have to hold you back. You just have to believe in yourself and follow the Tony Robbin's step-by-step guide to snagging a life beyond anything you could ever dream of. Which he has called: '12 Keys to an Extraordinary Life'. You couldn't make this shit up. He said at a recent event:

"I don't care if you are young or old, I don't care what your colour is, what your gender is, what country you come from, if you understand the science of building wealth you can have an abundance of it. If you violate those rules [of the 12 keys to an Extraordinary Life] either because you're ignorant to them or you don't apply then, you are going to have financial stress"

Tony, who sounds uncomfortably like Gaz in his belief anyone can become a millionaire, may as well have just said "we are all one"! "Everyone can make it no matter what grinding and economically depressive situations you come from"! And be done with it.

Financial stress is not brought about because you have unknowingly violated one or more of the '12 Keys to an Extraordinary Life' which Tony has made tens of millions off. Violating female stereotypes of passivity have a lot more to do with our failure or success in the workplace than how hard we do, or do not, hustle for top positions and top earning brackets. Rivers and Barnett write, "Competent women violate the traditional female stereotype of passivity. And that violation can trigger a reaction of fear and loathing [in the workplace]."

Financial stress is brought about because of injustices such as the pay-gap and the coloured pay-gap. Something Tony, has clearly gone out of his way to ignore. Self-help gurus and people like Gaz and Gary tend to, "displace questions of social justice and frame their rhetoric by the individualist and corporatist values of a consumer society," as both Jeremy Carrette and Richard King wrote in the book, Selling Spirituality: the silent take over of religion.

Both Rivers and Barnett point out in relation to the American pay gap,

"Hispanic/Latino women have the lowest median earnings, earning just 55 percent of the median weekly earnings of white men; black women have, median weekly earnings of 64 percent of those of white men."

The pay gap for America's first nation indigenous women also sits at 55 cents in the dollar compared to white men, as non-profit AAUW reports. Indigenous women are faced with earning nearly half of what white men do in America.

Similarly, in Aotearoa indigenous Maori and Pasifika women, face significant coloured/indigenous pay-gaps compared to white men and women. TheDominion Post, reported last year, "Maori and Pasifika women are more likely to be in the lowest paying jobs, which increases the poverty in their lives and communities." The Human Rights Commission has been tracking unfairness and inequality at work and cites that Pasifika women on average earn $57,668 while white men earn $66,900. What this data shows us is that, "Men are paid more than women overall and within ethnic groups. The effects increase when combining several factors as is the case between New Zealand European men and Pacific women. These patterns have persisted over time."

These "patterns" of women of colour and Indigenous women being paid significantly less than white men and women, to do the same damn jobs have "persisted" all over the world from America to Aotearoa. Injustice and oppression is locally and globally connected.

A more accurate description of what the aspirational metaphor of the Glass Ceiling is made out of is to say it is made from lead. So many women are much more likely to fall off what Rivers and Barnett have labelled the "glass cliff" than triumphantly smash the glass ceiling into a million little pieces. Following Tony Robbin's guide to obtaining some magical, fairy-tale life, or any other pseudo bullshit glittery guides to financial freedom, aren't going to be very effective for women born into a system which was built to silence and eradicate them.

The only thing I am aspiring to "smash" is white imperial patriarchal systems that at best disempower women and at worst, brutally and often violently oppress them.

***

As workers we are criticized for our behavior whether we are told we need to be "more ambitious" or we "just need to work harder" in response to our perceived failure to land a great job with good pay and consistent hours. I am so tired of listening to people who endlessly tell me to go and get a "better job" or a "real job" (what does that even mean?!). And I have lost count of the times I have been told by people who hold anti-protester positions to "go and get a job" while I am on the picket line or the protest ground. As if the low waged work I do counts for absolutely nothing. As if service industry work is some kind of phantom job.

This is for anyone who has ever told a service worker to go and get a "job" or a "real job": why don't you make your own double shot soy latte, flip your own burgers and pour your own damn beer and make your own designer espresso martini, which costs more than I make in an hour.

When as a worker, I refuse to put up with horrible workplace conditions and hit the picket line or call the Union as a form of resistance I have been called a "trouble maker", "dirty hippy" and an "inconvenience". I am proud to be all of those things. I am glad I stood up and was brave and risked job loss (sometimes I have lost my job for speaking out) and arrest in an attempt to better my workplace conditions. The only people who are "dirty" are those who seize on disaster capitalism and economically benefit from the oppression of others… I am looking at you Tony Robbin's and Gaz.

We need more workers collectively rising up and following the lead of Health Care workers, Bunning Warehouse and Supermarket workers and more recently Bus drivers. Who have all relentlessly hit union backed picket lines to demand 'fair pay for fair work' and better work conditions, in New Zealand. And less people thinking magically one day their lives will get better if they just play by the rules and perform their duties at work without complaint. This is nothing but blind faith. It is like believing in god: no matter how long you patiently wait he is not going to come and save you.

People from the working classes and those who have been in the wake of the 2008 financial crash, disenfranchised from the middle and upper-classes can save each other. But we need to refuse to allow those who hold power to continue to pit us against one another in some kind of Capitalist Death Match. Where the only prize you get is some demeaning job where the wages are so low you have to pick between buying food or paying the electricity bill. Starving or freezing does not sound like much of a "win" to me. It sounds like bullshit.

The more people who push against injustice in staggering numbers the harder it is for the media to ignore us and distort our messages of resistance.

Many people's grinding situations have nothing to do with individual 'bad choices' or laziness or you know, violating the '12 Steps to an Extraordinary Life'. No matter how many times we hear rotten rhetoric like this we must refuse - absolutely - to accept these types of pervasive and dominant narratives. At their core these narratives use shame and ruggedly focus on the individual as a method to pacify and silence. We must disrupt language that is designed to disempower and divide workers while seeming to empower. We need to seek out ways to elevate the voices of our most vulnerable and the messages of people of conscience who can envision a better world and whose political imaginations outstretch the dominant reality.

Lastly, we need to fight and stand with other workers against employers who exploit their employees and view them as nothing more than units to turn-over capital. Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, went on to write in their before mentioned book:

"We are never obliged to accept the dominant version of reality (however conceived throughout history) without question."

Debt, Underemployment, and Capitalism: The Rise of Twenty-First-Century Serfdom

By Cherise Charleswell and Colin Jenkins

Systemic contradictions of capitalism have only intensified in the neoliberal era. Structural unemployment, a phenomenon directly related to capitalist modes of production, has continued unabated, creating a massive and ever-growing "reserve army of labor" that has been disenfranchised on an unprecedented scale.

Working classes, en masse, have been corralled into legalized systems of education debt with false promises of "middle-class" lifestyles, only to be tossed into a job market that can no longer keep up with the system's inherent deficits and inability to provide a living wage to the masses. Massive inequality and unprecedented wealth accumulation and concentration have paralleled uncontrollable costs of living and widespread housing insecurity for the working-class majority.

The twentieth-century liberal experiment has failed, bringing down with it the delusional hopes of constructing a manageable and benevolent form of capitalism. The ripple effects of capitalism's structural failures, intensified by modern forms of government-facilitated debt slavery, job markets that can no longer keep pace with wage demands, and interrelated housing insecurity and displacement, have pushed us into a twenty-first-century serfdom. We are left wondering how long this balancing act can last.

Capitalism and Underemployment

Unemployment is not a natural occurrence within society. It is a purely capitalist problem that arises from artificial economic arrangements, most notably the advent of wage labor, which forces people to serve as commodities. This is an important point that is often missed, especially in regards to modern assessments of the labor market and popular reports that focus on the fiction of an unemployment rate. In the United States, since the 1950s, the official unemployment rate has fluctuated between 4.4 percent and 10 percent.1 Full employment in a capitalist system is neither possible (without government intervention) nor desirable to capitalists or those who benefit from the system. Rather, substantial and perpetual unemployment is both a byproduct of the system's relational mechanisms and a necessity that serves a systemic purpose in regards to profitability and wage reduction (or stagnation). The never-ending search for profit by those who have access to capital, and the means to reproduce it, places those who must sell their labor power to survive in a perpetual state of insecurity. Other than the fundamental extraction of profit through the labor process (surplus value), the most basic method in regenerating profit comes from replacing variable capital (living labor) with fixed capital (machines), a relationship that Marx referred to as the "organic composition of capital."2 While the process of creating surplus labor value consists of paying wages that equal a fraction of the value created, the process of increasing productive capacities through the implementation of machinery leaves living labor in an even more precarious situation. This process leads to the creation of what Marx referred to as the "Industrial Reserve Army" (the unemployed)-a phenomenon that becomes both a byproduct and a leveraging tool within the capitalist system.

Attempts to circumvent capitalism's tendency to create and maintain high amounts of unemployment and underemployment have been carried out by industrialized capitalist societies utilizing Keynesian economic programs. By calling on a high degree of governmental involvement in the economic system vis-à-vis taxation and supplementation, John Maynard Keynes believed that structural problems like "involuntary unemployment" could be remedied. 3 When coupled with the post-World War II economic boom in the United States, Keynesian techniques appeared to make positive steps towards remedying structural unemployment. Between 1948 and 1970, the official unemployment rate in the United States was relatively low by historic measures, typically fluctuating between 3 and 5 percent, and falling below 3 percent on a few occasions during the 1950s.4 The marginal tax rate during this time-also a byproduct of Keynesian thought-was a major factor in the economic success experienced by much of the U.S. population, including the white working class in its ascent to "middle class" status, and also helped create historically low unemployment rates. From 1948 to 1963, the top marginal tax rate remained at 91 percent, with the exception of 1952 and 1953 when it was raised to 92 percent.5 In 1964, this top rate was lowered to 77 percent, and from 1965 into the 1970s, it was set at 70 percent.6

The Keynesian experiment came to an end in the 1980s, when neoliberalism took form as a class project. Coupled with the phenomenon of globalization, which fused formerly industrialized labor markets (unionized with living wages) in the global core with formerly colonized labor markets in the global periphery, underemployment has become an epidemic with disastrous effects. Marx warned of such developments when writing, "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. … It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, and establish connections everywhere."7 The global consequence of this constant pursuit of profit is not only the establishment of new markets of consumers and laborers, but also the proliferation of imperialism. For the former industrialized working classes, such as in the United States, it means an intensification of capitalist mechanisms that create unemployment and underemployment. Because of this, the replacement of manufacturing jobs by low-wage service sector jobs has become a distinguishing characteristic of American capitalism since the 1980s. Government involvement in this system has become a necessity, not for the purpose of obstructing it (as many right-wing critics claim), but for the purpose of supplementing it and propping it up via infusions of money and for maintaining the minimum of social welfare programs. The former can be seen in the increased importance of the Federal Reserve and monetarism (including the practice of quantitative easing), while the latter can be seen in the working class's increased reliance on things like food stamps-a direct result of the disappearance of living wages.

The type of government involvement that became common in the 1980s was nothing like its Keynesian predecessor. Rather than seeking public programs and fiscal policies that created jobs, neoliberal intervention seeks to supplement profit accumulation for those at the top of the socio-economic ladder. This is carried out with mantras like "getting government off our backs," lowering taxes for so-called "job creators," and even blatantly allowing for massive profits to be justified under a promise of such money "trickling down" to the masses. As neoliberalism represents an intensification of capitalism, not only through the dismantling of Keynesian-style interventions but also through a 180-degree reversal in using government to supplement the capitalists rather than the workers, the neoliberal era has brought on a uniquely precarious existence for the working class in the United States. Thomas Palley explains:

Before 1980, economic policy was designed to achieve full employment, and the economy was characterized by a system in which wages grew with productivity. This configuration created a virtuous circle of growth. Rising wages meant robust aggregate demand, which contributed to full employment. Full employment in turn provided an incentive to invest, which raised productivity, thereby supporting higher wages.

After 1980, with the advent of the neoliberal growth model, the commitment to full employment was abandoned as inflationary, with the result that the link between productivity growth and wages was severed. In place of wage growth as the engine of demand growth, the new model substituted borrowing and asset price inflation. Adherents of the neoliberal orthodoxy made controlling inflation their primary policy concern, and set about attacking unions, the minimum wage, and other worker protections.8

The culmination of the disastrous neoliberal measures that began in the 1980s was realized with what has been labeled the Great Recession of 2008, whose effects are only starting to be fully understood nearly seven years later. Some alarming statistics should be emphasized: Between 2008 and 2014, the U.S. labor market lost a total of 1.4 million full-time jobs; more than 20 percent of workers who were laid off as a result of the Great Recession still have not found a new job; when considering those workers who have given up looking for employment, the unemployment rate is closer to 12 percent; of all "prime-age workers" (ages 25 to 54) in the United States, 23.3 percent were "not employed" as of November of 2014.9

A January 2014 study conducted by Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute, entitled, "Is There Really a Shortage of Skilled Workers?" countered a popular argument presented by the mainstream analysis, which claimed there was a shortage of qualified workers to fill so-called "skilled" positions. 10Fred Goldstein, writing on Shierholz' research, said,

The study found that no matter what the skill level of workers, their unemployment rate went up by 150 percent to 190 percent from 2007 to 2013. The unemployment rate for workers with less than high school education was 10.3 percent in 2007 and 15.9 percent in 2013. For high school graduates, the unemployment rate was 5.4 percent in 2007 and 9.6 percent in 2013. For workers with some college, the unemployment figures jumped dramatically from 4.0 percent in 2007 to 7.3 percent in 2013; for college graduates, it went up from 2.4 percent to 4.5 percent and for those with advanced degrees, it went from 1.7 percent to 3.2 percent, that is, almost double.11

This highlights perhaps the most alarming effect of the recession, which has been a mass replacement of living-wage jobs with low-wage jobs in the service sector. In sectors that experienced severe job losses during the Great Recession, workers were earning 23 percent less in 2014. In manufacturing and construction, the average salary fell from $61,637 in 2008 to $41,171 in 2014. The jobs that have been added during the "recovery" (2009-2014) have been largely low wage, confirmed by the fact that $93 billion in "lower wage income" has been created during this time period.12

Toward Twenty-First-Century Serfdom: Debt, Student Loans, and Rising Costs of Living

The net result of prolonged and skyrocketing unemployment and underemployment and the increasing stagnation of wages is the mounting epidemic of debt. Debt, in the form of medical bills, housing costs, and ballooning mortgage payments, has contributed to people having to file for bankruptcy as well as finding themselves homeless.13 This new-age form of debt has effectively divided the United States into an income-bound set of castes, the "Haves" and "Have Nots." The awakening to this unequal balance of wealth and debt set the stage for the Occupy Movement uprisings, which spread globally and advocated on behalf of the 99 percent, the workers who collectively hold much less economic wealth than the richest 1 percent. In real terms, according to the IRS, those who belong to the lower 99 percent of U.S. income distribution are those with a household adjusted gross income of less than $343,927. This valuation not only illustrates how wealthy the 1 percent must be, but it also speaks to the fact that there is still much socio-economic stratification within the 99 percent, including differences in the likelihood of financial hardship and debt.14 While the outsourcing of jobs has greatly contributed to unemployment, those who are lucky enough to still have a job are finding themselves working long hours or having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Despite the noted rise in hours worked, which should logically translate into higher annual incomes, Americans are finding themselves falling into debt at unprecedented rates.15

All of this has helped to give rise to what can only be referred to as a twenty-first-century serfdom. An example of the indebted economy is the fact that mergers, monopolies, and concentrations of influence have created the present reality of workers finding themselves employed by, and simultaneously indebted to, the same corporate entities. The "pay" that is earned is immediately shuffled back to these corporations in the form of student loan payments, mortgage payments, cable payments, health insurance premiums, and so on. The feasibility of paying off these employer/debt-holding entities in a timely matter, or at all, is difficult or nearly impossible, especially when considering that they are the very ones who set and keep wages low and transfer the profit from workers' increased productivity to the pockets of CEOs, investors, shareholders, bankers, and so on.

Debt is a Byproduct of Capitalism

Within this current era of unchecked capitalism, where citizens must take to the streets in protest to persuade the government to intervene and create policies that will support a living wage or protect workers' rights, debt and inequality are the most recognizable and predictable byproducts. The process of financialization, which began in the 1970s, depends on widespread loosening of banking regulations, environmental laws, and labor laws. Inequality is inherent in capitalism due to its concentrating of wealth in the hands of the few, in the form of monopolies and by the exploitation and maximizing of profits at the expense of, or through the labor of, the masses-the twenty-first-century serfs. Neoliberal capitalism has allowed for unprecedented concentrations of not only wealth, but power, creating a landscape where the wealthy are modern representations of feudal lords. As in feudal societies, it is the pauper (serf) who pays the biggest percentage of taxes (or dues for land usage in the case of serfs), and this is even true under Democrat-led administrations in the United States. Just consider the fact that corporate taxes decreased from 25 percent during the Bush Administration to 12 percent under Obama, while workers' tax rates remained the same or increased.16

The Student-Loan Debt Crisis

The biggest driver for debt in the past twenty-five years has been the rising cost of tuition and student-loan debt. This debt crisis may eventually represent the proverbial "final straw that breaks the camel's back," as there do not seem to be any plans for immediate relief. Instead, politicians spend election seasons making false promises and arguments in favor of student debt relief, but do not offer any concrete measures to bring this into fruition. Further, those outside of socialist and progressive movements remain ignorant of, or will not be honest about, the fact that capitalism is structured to produce exploitation, concentrated wealth and profitability, and debt. Capitalism's constant pursuit of profit has led to the transformation of higher education into a no-holds-barred profit-seeking venture. This process can be summed up as follows: Colleges and universities are using decades of cutbacks in state and federal funding for higher education to justify massive increases in tuition, the proliferation of adjunct professor positions, and budget cuts to educational and other services upon which students depend. A 2008 study published by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities made headlines when it shared that on average states are spending $1,805, or 20 percent, less per student than before the recession; some states, such as Alabama, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, which are for the most part states where there is a Republican stronghold, have slashed their higher education funding by more than 35 percent since 2008, and they are topped by Arizona with a decrease of 47 percent.17 Back in 1988, in the not so long ago past, public colleges and universities received 3.2 times as much revenue from state and local governments as they did from students.18 This simply means that the student did not carry the bulk of the burden to finance higher education, which was instead paid for by public dollars, collectively sharing these costs.

As wages go down, the cost of tuition continues to climb, leaving behind an educated populace that is saddled with debt. Tuition jumped 28 percent between the 2008-2009 and the 2013-2014 school years, while real median income fell by approximately 8 percent over this period. To understand the bigger picture, consider that since 1973 average inflation-adjusted college tuition cost has more than tripled-an increase of 270 percent-but median household income has barely changed and is up by only 5 percent;19 this represents the core of the crisis. What are graduates to do? How are they to survive and afford their most basic needs while working low-paying jobs and still being forced to pay back a student loan that they cannot even write off in bankruptcy, like the corporations and banks do with their debts?

There is no greater evidence of the burden of student-loan debt than the accounting of loans that have fallen into delinquency. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a 2015 report that shared that delinquent student loans (those whose payments are 90 days or more past due) increased to 11.5 percent of the $1.9 trillion (yes trillion!) in education loans.

Essentially, the burden of financing the exorbitant costs of education has been passed on to the students, and the high cost with dwindling returns (where are the higher-paying jobs?) has begun to discourage would-be college-goers, a process that is equally by design. Higher education was once looked on as a means to develop a cultured, well-rounded, and informed citizenry. However, this is no longer the case, since cultivation of thinkers would only lead to questioning of the prevailing system of inequality. The Great Society programs that gained steam in the 1960s set out to make sure that students who could not otherwise attend college could do so, without the burden of having to work excessive hours to help cover the cost of education. In fact, at one time students could actually use their summer vacations to "work their way through college," something that is now impossible. In the current landscape, students are forced to take out mortgage-sized loans from financial lenders who are profit-driven corporations and who inevitably put their bottom lines before the needs and best interests of students.

This student-loan crisis has ensured that the last two generations are worse off than were their parents, ending the historical progression of improvements in the quality of life with each subsequent generation. Over a lifetime of employment and saving, someone with $53,000 in education debt can expect nearly $208,000 less wealth than a similarly educated person without debt.20 Crippled by this debt and entering a job market with lower and stagnant wages, graduates, who were sold the falsehood of the American Dream, are unable to afford the lifestyles that their parents and grandparents once enjoyed. Dispensable income is becoming a scarcity, while more money is being spent to cover the rising costs of food, health care, transportation, clothing, and housing. With this reality the feudal lords, the wealthy 1 percent, are gaining exponential profits through this multi-dimensional exploitation of the working class.

Conclusion

The proliferation of the capitalist system through the neoliberal era has resulted in a modern form of feudal society where there is great inequality and wealth is concentrated among the few. Policy changes, and perhaps a restructuring or change in the current systems of governance, are needed, but this will largely depend on the actions of the working-class majority: the growing number of impoverished, overworked, unemployed, or underemployed serfs whose labor and bodies are being exploited and who have been left wholly disenfranchised.

Despite the need for mass action, it has yet to materialize. Despite dire circumstances, there remains a great reluctance to challenge the status quo of inequality. This stems from the fact that far too many are still hopelessly reliant on the illusion of the American Dream, believe in the falsehood of rugged individualism, or merely fear the prospects of instability and the unknown. The motivation for revolutionary change exists throughout, yet many fundamental questions remain unanswered. Some may not have an answer until steps are taken. For instance, if the current system of government-which has become no more than a "dollarocracy"21 that does not represent or even consider the views or needs of the working-class majority-is overthrown, what would happen next? Fears of the unknown persist and are perpetuated by corporate-sponsored media, which thrives on the sensationalism of doomsday reporting, ignoring the fact that fluctuations in the stock market and other macroeconomic indicators are far removed from the daily lives of many who actually work for a living.

Despite this widespread reluctance and fear that has been peddled to the majority, action is needed. Addressing debt is an immediate concern. Action does not need to be instantly revolutionary, but may be accomplished through gradual steps and reformist means. Some steps include:

• Continue building movements around issues of debt, unemployment, and inequality-movements that are multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-generational. An intersectional approach to such movements will effectively attack the divisions that have been artificially created to ensure that the status quo continues. Examples of this division are most visible throughout the impoverished states of the U.S. South, which despite having vast income inequality and being susceptible to corporate exploitation, also happen to possess high rates of historical, intra-working-class, racial animosity. Hate, fear, and ignorance cause many to vote and act against their own interest.

• Get behind efforts that are working to remove moneyed influence over the U.S. political system; some of that influence comes through the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that has the audacity to state that corporations are people. Be ready to accept that the entire system itself may need to be dismantled.

• Demand that the federal government gives us a New Deal that can address the problems of unemployment and the crumbling infrastructure. Bridges and highways need to be repaired, and high-speed rail needs to be laid out.

• Join and support unions, which are under assault, because they are the only stakeholder who truly bargains and fights for the working-class majority. Expanding the number of active unions will only benefit the workforce-those who are union and non-union alike.

For short-term and immediate relief of student-loan debt, which has become a critical issue:

• Shift direct-lending administration to the federal government and regulate and reduce interest rates on loans. Work toward de-profitizing higher education, making higher education a civic value.

• Reduce the military budget and replenish the diminished funding to schools, colleges, and universities that once helped to keep tuition costs down or made possible free tuition to public schools.

• Allow for student-loan debt to be included in bankruptcy claims, allowing for full or partial forgiveness of the debt to those who are without the means to pay.

The brief period of Keynesian consensus that ruled from the 1940s to the 1970s is over. The neoliberal imperative that has ruled since is currently subjecting an ever-larger share of the population to brutal austerity measures. Skyrocketing levels of debt and structural unemployment are the most visible manifestations of how far neoliberalism has penetrated into the structures of American society. However, in the years ahead, it will prove increasingly difficult to disguise the full nature of the crisis, and new opportunities to advance programs of systemic change can and will present themselves. If the left does not find a way to rise to the occasion, then it is unclear which track the country will take as it makes its way toward collapse.

This essay was published in the Winter 2016 edition of New Politics.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

2. Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 3: Part II, Chapter 8.

3. John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment Interest and Money (London: Macmillan and Co., 1936), 15.

4. U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.

5. U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History (Nominal Dollars).

6. U.S. Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History (Nominal Dollars).

7. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848). Chapter 1.

8. Thomas I. Palley, "America's Exhausted Paradigm."

9. Colin Jenkins, " The Great Recession, Six Years Later: Uneven Recovery, Flawed Indicators, and a Struggling Working Class ," The Hampton Institute, November 5, 2014.

10. Heidi Shierholz, "Is There Really a Shortage of Skilled Workers?" January 23, 2014.

11. Fred Goldstein, "Marxism and Long-term Unemployment."

12. Jenkins, "The Great Recession."

13. O. Khazan, " Why Americans Are Drowning in Medical Debt ," The Atlantic, Oct. 10, 2014.

14. R. Wile, " Student Debt Has Turned Millennials into Carless, Homeless, Basement Dwellers Who Can't Borrow ," Fusion, Feb 2, 2015.

15. D.S. Logan, " Fiscal Fact: Summary of the Latest Federal Individual Tax Data." Tax Foundation, 2011: No.285.

16. D. Gilson, " Overworked America: 12 Charts That Will Make Your Blood Boil ," Mother Jones, July/Aug 2011.

17. J. Geler, "Capitalism's Long Crisis,"International Socialist Review (No. 8, 2010).

18. E. Blake, " State funding for higher education in US slashed by 20 percent since 2008," World Socialist Web Site.

19. M.D. Weiss, " Student Loan Debt: America's Next Big Crisis ," USA Today, Aug 23, 2015.

20. R. Hiltonsmith, "At What Cost? How Student Debt Reduces Lifetime Wealth," Demos.

21. J.Nichols, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America (Nation Books, 2014).

The Great Recession, Six Years Later: Uneven Recovery, Flawed Indicators, and a Struggling Working Class

By Colin Jenkins

In July of this year, Barack Obama boasted of an impressive recovery the US has undertaken since the Great Recession of 2008, proclaiming, "We've recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth." To support this claim, the White House released a report showing that, out of 12 countries identified as "advanced" (France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States), the United States is "one of only two (the other being Germany) that experienced systemic financial crises in 2007 and 2008 but have seen real (gross domestic product) per working-age person return to pre-crisis levels."

Reports such as these have become commonplace in 2014, not only from those in the White House, but also from multiple media sources. Within mainstream circles, the recovery has generally been lauded by the Democratic wing of the media (MSNBC, Huffington Post, and of course reports from the White House) and questioned by the Republican wing (Fox News, the Wall Street Journal). Since the reports stemming from these sources are almost always politically-charged, they have a tendency to be misleading in at least some manner. In the rare instance where genuine information or analysis leaks from the mainstream, it is usually the unintended result of a media spin.

Ultimately, the intended purpose of these reports are reduced to either showing Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in a good light (by focusing on seemingly positive statistics) or showing Obama and the Democrats in a bad light (by focusing on seemingly negative statistics). Often times, the same statistics may be used; however, spun differently. Neither side is interested in formulating meaningful analysis, but rather in swaying voters one way or the other. Still, in this media tug-o-war, facts are sometimes used to support political arguments, and thus may be useful from time to time if one is able to pick them out of the fray. But, even when we catch a glimpse of fairly reliable statistics, how do we cut through the politically-charged spins to give them meaning?

Take Obama's July statement for instance. It suggests that the US has experienced a strong recovery since the 2008 economic crisis, right? Well, not necessarily. What it says is that the US has experienced a better recovery than 11 out of 12 of its "advanced" counterparts that "experienced systemic crises," which (it's important to note) were handpicked by the White House. According to the International Monetary Fund, there are actually 36 countries that are considered to have "advanced economies." And considering the global nature of the economy, it's difficult to claim that 67% of them avoided systemic crisis. When compared to the 36, the US ranks 12th in GDP growth and 9th in unemployment rate recovery. Not necessarily bad, but certainly not as good as suggested.

Which brings us to some other questions: How accurate are GDP and unemployment rates when assessing the overall economic well-being of a country? Why are such macroeconomic indicators used so frequently in mainstream analyses? Do they accurately represent the well-being of the working-class majority, or do they simply represent convenient fodder used to supplement political spins? Let's take a look.

Gross Domestic Product and the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Two major indicators used to determine the overall health of the economy are the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA).

US GDP growth rates over the past six years suggest a strong recovery. Since falling more than 16 percent during the Great Recession of 2008-09, the GDP has experienced growth in 19 out of 21 financial quarters.

2013 was especially successful in terms of GDP growth, averaging over 3 percent for the first time since the recession. 2014 started out slow, dropping a little over 2% in the first quarter (Q1 2014); however, this was written off as an irregularity by analysts, including PNC Senior Economist Gus Faucher, who attributed the drop to " bad weather " that "was a significant drag on the economy, disrupting production, construction, and shipments, and deterring home and auto sales." Since that time, the GDP has been growing at a rate of 4.1% over the past six months.

The DJIA has shown even bigger signs of recovery. After being cut in half between September 2007 (15,865) and February 2009 (7,923), the DJIA has experienced an almost unfathomable boom.

It hit its highest point ever in November 2013, nearly five years after the recession, at 16,429, and has been breaking records ever since. Heading into November of 2014, it stands at 17, 390 - the highest point in its 128-year history.

Corporate Profits

Not surprisingly, the cumulative amount of corporate profits in the United States have paralleled the success of the stock market. American Enterprise Institute economist Mark J. Perry has illustrated a sharp correlation between the S & P 500 Index and after-tax corporate profits in the chart below:

Perry explains this phenomenon:

"Starting about 2009, a one-to-one relationship between stock prices and after-tax corporate profits has once again re-emerged, and both the S&P 500 and corporate profits have increased by the exact same 119% at the end of 2013 from their cyclical, recessionary lows. The all-time record highs for the S&P 500 Index in 2013 were being driven by record-high corporate profits as the chart shows, and it's almost certain that the ongoing bull market rally in 2014 continues to be supported by record-high corporate profits."

The corporate landscape has rarely been as conducive to generating profit as it is right now. As a result, the post-recession years have been dubbed "a golden age of corporate profits" by those in both mainstream and alternate media. Specifically, "corporate earnings have risen at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent since the end of 2008." As a percentage of national income, "corporate profits stood at 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, the largest share at any time since 1950."

To put the significance of this growth in perspective, at the end of 2008, during the peak of the recession, US corporate after-tax profits totaled $671.40 Billion. At the end of June 2014, that total has nearly tripled to $1.842 Trillion.

Unemployment Rate and Job Growth

Another major indicator used to gauge the state of the economy is the unemployment rate. In October of 2009, after the residual effects of the recession had settled, the US unemployment rate officially hit 10% for only the second time since 1940 (10.8% in 1982). After hovering around 9% through 2011, the rate has steadily decreased over the past few years, dropping below 6% in September of 2014 - a level untouched since July of 2008.

This new 6-year low in the rate includes 1.9 million people dropping from the ranks of the unemployed, and the number of "long-term unemployed" falling 1.2 million over the past year.

According to the US Department of Labor, "employers added 248,000 jobs in September (2014)" and "payrolls have expanded an average 227,000 a month this year, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year of job growth since the late 1990s." The job growth rate in 2014 included a 300,000+ jump in April. And much of this expansion has been fueled by the private sector, which "has now added 10.3 million jobs over 55 straight months of growth" since the recession.

Flawed Indicators

Based on assessments which focus on macroeconomic indicators like the GDP, DJIA, and Unemployment Rate, one could reasonably come to the conclusion that not only has the US fully recovered from the "Great Recession," but it has actually surpassed pre-recession levels in economic well-being. However, this begs the question: whose well-being? And a closer examination uncovers plenty of contradictions.

The contradictions that arise from such assessments are largely due to the inherent flaws of these indicators. According to the New Economy Working Group, "Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has many deficiencies as a measure of economic well-being. Most often noted is the fact that it can only add, which means it makes no distinction between beneficial and harmful economic activity." Also, GDP analyses focus solely on total growth, and do not attempt to assess levels of wealth distribution:

"There could be complete income equality with everyone's purchasing power growing equally. Or the society may be divided between a small minority of the extremely affluent and a majority of the extremely destitute - or anything in between. GDP gives no clue one way or the other. Growth in the incomes of a few billionaires can produce impressive growth in GDP even as a majority of people starve."

In fact, during the past half-century, the DJIA has lost almost all of its credibility as a reliable indicator of economic well-being. And since the rise of globalization in the late-1990s, it has become increasingly irrelevant to economic activity on a national level. "The Dow's biggest flaw, perhaps, is that it doesn't help us to make sense of an increasingly interconnected global economy - one in which what's good for GM isn't always good for the country," explains Adam Davidson. "GE, IBM and Intel, for example, all make more than half their profits in other countries. And while this may be great for their shareholders, it means little for most Americans."

The ever-increasing gap between corporate profit and workers income has also served as a death knell to the DJIA indicator. "In the postwar boom of the 1950s, the economy was growing so fast, and the benefits were so widely shared (throughout the socioeconomic ladder), that following 30 large American companies was a solid measure of most everyone's personal economy," Davidson adds. Back then, "what was good for GM really was good for the country." In a modern economic environment that rewards CEOs 331 times more than the average worker, and 774 times more than minimum wage workers, this is no longer the case. (In 1983, this ratio was 46 to 1)

Historically, the unemployment rate has been considered a fairly weak indicator of economic well-being, and for good reason. Its two major flaws lie in its failure to gauge levels of income, and its inability to consider things like "underemployment" and "hidden unemployment."

These lost categories include "people who have given up looking for jobs or work part time because they can't find full-time position." In 2014, as unemployment statistics suggest a vast improvement in labor participation, "more than 9 million Americans still fit into these categories, about 60 percent - or 3.5 million - above prerecession levels, according to the Labor Department."

Evan Horowitz explains:

"Let's say there are 100 people either working or looking for work. If 94 of those people have jobs, and six are seeking jobs, then the unemployment rate is 6 percent.

Notice that a lot hinges on people 'working or looking for work.' Say you want to work, but the job market is bad and you decide to put off the search until conditions get better. You're still unemployed, just not counted as unemployed by the government.

To return to the example, if three of those six people looking for work get discouraged and give up, the unemployment rate would fall to about 3 percent."

Furthermore, the unemployment rate completely ignores income. In other words, even rates that are considered to represent "full employment" (4-5%) essentially mean nothing if a considerable number of jobs pay poverty wages.

State of the Working Class

Because macro-indicators like the DJIA, GDP, and unemployment rates are severely flawed in their ability to reflect standards of living and economic well-being for a population, it is important to evaluate how the majority is fairing in this so-called recovery.

Since the US population throughout is largely driven by consumerism, a telling statistic is the market-based core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, a measurement used to determine the amount of expendable income the average consumer possesses at a given time. According to Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute, "the market-based price index for core PCE (i.e., excluding food and energy) rose just 1.3% over the past year, well below the Fed's 2% inflation target." This supports further evidence that impressive gains in GDP and corporate profits are simply not reaching (or trickling down to) a majority of Americans.

Despite recent and steady job growth, there are still 1.4 million fewer full-time jobs in the US today than there was in 2008. A recent survey conducted at Rutgers University reports that more than 20 percent of all workers that have been laid off in the past five years still have not found a new job.

When considering workers who have given up on job searches, the unemployment rate is estimated at more than 12 percent.

A more accurate indicator than the unemployment rate may be the actual employment rate. When looking at this, we see that roughly 80 percent of " prime-age workers " (those between 25 and 54) had jobs in 2007. "That bottomed out at around 75 percent during the worst of the downturn, but has risen to only 76.7 percent since."

Despite steady job growth, new jobs simply do not stack up to the jobs that were lost. In sectors that experienced severe job losses due to the recession, workers are earning 23% less today. The average annual salary in the manufacturing and construction sectors - a particularly hard hit area - was $61,637 in 2008. It has now plummeted to $47,171 in 2014. Similar adjustments to income levels imply that $93 billion in lower wage income has been created during the recovery - meaning workers, across the board, are receiving a much smaller share than they were before 2009.

A report by the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) also showed that "the majority of metro areas - 73 percent - had households earning salaries of less than $35,000 a year," hardly a living wage for families facing ever-rising commodity prices.

Despite increased productivity and corporate profits, most workers' wages have actually fallen. Biven reports, "From the first half of 2013 to the first half of 2014, real hourly wages fell for all deciles, except for a miniscule two-cent increase at the 10th percentile. Underlying this exception to the general trend at the 10th percentile is a set of state-level minimum-wage increases in the first half of 2014 in states where 40 percent of U.S. workers reside."

"As a percentage of national income, corporate profits stood at 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012, the largest share at any time since 1950, while the portion of income that went to employees was 61.7 percent, near its lowest point since 1966,"reported Nelson Schwartz in 2013. Dean Maki, chief US economist at Barclay's reports that "corporate earnings have risen at an annualized rate of 20.1 percent since the end of 2008, but disposable income inched ahead by 1.4 percent annually over the same period, after adjusting for inflation," adding that "there hasn't been a period in the last 50 years where these trends have been so pronounced."

In the midst of impressive GDP growth, the US working class is experiencing a legitimate hunger crisis that does not seem to slowing down. "As of 2012,49 million Americans suffer from food insecurity, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as lack of access to 'enough food for an active, healthy life.' Nearly one-third of the afflicted are children. And millions of them don't even have access to food stamps, according to a new report from the anti-hunger organization Feeding America."

In May of 2014, there were 46.2 million Americans on food stamps, a slight decrease from a record 47.8 million in December 2012. According to the US Department of Agriculture, 14.8% of the US population is currently on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Prior to the recession, the percentage of the population requiring such assistance hovered between 8 and 11 percent.

According to the US Census Bureau, "in 2013, there were 45.3 million people living in poverty" and "for the third consecutive year, the number of people in poverty at the national level was not statistically different from the previous year's estimate." The official poverty rate is at 14.5 percent.

Conclusion

Between 2008 and 2013, the number of US households with a net worth of $1 million or more increased dramatically, from 6.7 million to 9.6 million. Households with a net worth of $5 million and $25 million respectively also increased. "There were 1.24 million households with a net worth of $5 million or more last year, up from 840,000 in 2008. Those with $25 million and above climbed to 132,000 in 2013, up from 84,000 in 2008."

The US government, or more specifically, the Federal Reserve, has been instrumental in this uneven recovery that has been characterized by massive corporate profits and booming millionaires on one side (a small minority), and falling wages, increased poverty, and frequent reliance on food stamps on the other side (a large majority).

According to a September 2014 study by the Harvard Business School, the widening gap between America's wealthiest and its middle and lower classes is "unsustainable," and "is unlikely to improve any time soon." The study points the finger at "shortsighted executives" who are "satisfied with an American economy whose firms win in global markets without lifting US living standards" for American workers, and therefore create an extremely polarized population where a majority of workers are disenfrachised from the business world.

The practice of quantitative easing (QE) - "An unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply" - has become common during the recovery. Essentially, this practice "increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital in an effort to promote increased lending and liquidity." After three bouts of QE, all occurring since the recession, the Federal Reserve has acquired $4.5 trillion in assets , while adding at least $2.3 trillion of additional currency into the economy.

Robert D. Auerbach - an economist with the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee for eleven years, assisting with oversight of the Federal Reserve, and now Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin - estimates that 81.5% of this money has not been used to "stimulate the economy," but rather " sits idle as excess reserve in private banks."

Others have reported that, rather than sitting idle as Auerbach suggests, the money has actually funneled through to major corporate players, creating massive personal wealth for a select few. CNBC's Robert Frank reported just last week that "the world's billionaires are holding an average of $600 million in cash each - greater than the gross domestic product of Dominica," which "marks a jump of $60 million from a year ago and translates into billionaires' holding an average of 19 percent of their net worth in cash."

When considering the top-heavy recovery numbers, and increased misery for the working class, this comes as no surprise. And it certainly comes as no surprise to political economist Doug Henwood, who reported such trends back in 2012:

"Despite the strong recovery in cash flow, to record-breaking levels, firms are investing at levels typically seen at cyclical lows, not highs. Some cash flow is going abroad, in the form of direct investment, but still you'd think returns like these would encourage investment. Instead, they've been shipping out gobs to shareholder. Here's a graph of what I call shareholder transfers (dividends plus stock buybacks plus proceeds of mergers and acquisitions) over time:

Though not at the preposterously elevated levels of the late 1990s and mid-2000s, transfers are at the high end of their historical range. Instead of serving the textbook role of raising capital for productive investment, the stock market has become a conduit for shoveling money out of the 'real' sector and into the pockets of shareholders, who besides buying other securities, pay themselves nice bonuses they transform into Jaguars and houses in Southampton."

The Great Recession - like the 2001 recession before it, the 1990-91 recession before that, the 1981-82 recession before that, the 1973-75 recession before that, and so on - was the result of deeper systemic deficiencies. While the emergence of financialization opened the door for manipulative and predatory finance tricks (credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities, NINJA loans, etc...) and helped to construct an impressively profitable house of cards, it is only part of the story. Ultimately, it is the boom & bust, cyclical nature of capitalism, along with its perpetually falling rates of profit (not cumulative profit), that are truly responsible, though almost always ignored.

The nature of this latest recovery suggests that the final nail in the working-class coffin, whose construction has been underway since the birth of neoliberalism, has been secured into place. Despite desperate measures used to pump massive amounts of currency into the economy through QE, virtually none has trickled down to the 99%. It's like déjà vu, all over again. And again… And again…