Of course, working people ultimately cannot rely upon the federal government or the state governments (whose purpose is to maintain the hegemony of t… - James Dennis Hoff
" "Of course, working people ultimately cannot rely upon the federal government or the state governments (whose purpose is to maintain the hegemony of the markets and the rule of capital) to fix this crisis in any equitable way. Only the working class has the power to make this happen through and . In order to act swiftly in the case of any layoffs, lockouts, or shutdowns, working people ultimately must organize themselves at their and in the streets, whether they are in a union or not, and be prepared to use their collective power to demand that all necessary resources be employed for the well being of the whole class with full compensation and benefits, that full back pay be provided to all workers upon returning to work, and that everyone has access to well compensated employment.
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About James Dennis Hoff
James Dennis Hoff is an American author, educator, and activist. He is an of English and American Studies at the .
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When times are good, capital can extract huge profits from labor with little risk. For instance, after the last economic crisis, the (thanks in large part to government bailouts) not only managed to recover all of its losses by 2013, it then proceeded to almost double its value in the seven years that followed — an average rate of growth equal to about 14 percent per year. By contrast, average hourly wages for working people, which rose less than three percent per year for most of that same period, recovered much more slowly, and many workers actually saw their wages fall or remain flat when adjusted for inflation. When times are bad, however, in moments of crisis, when profits are low, or when there is little or no demand — such as we are seeing in many industries today — corporations and companies can protect themselves and their by simply letting workers go. Workers, on the other hand usually must continue to pay for food, rent, healthcare, and basic utilities in order to survive. As a consequence, while capital can often weather the storm of such economic crises, they can severely weaken the power of the working class by creating what Marx called a vast . And since unemployment insurance compensations are rarely available to all and always only for a short period of time, workers — whether laid off or only threatened with the prospect of layoffs—will eventually be pressured to work much harder for less wages. And this is precisely why the future of worker’s power depends on how we respond to this crisis now.
While this will certainly mean short term losses for wealthy s, these crashes — signs of a coming — are nonetheless part of the bigger process of what Leon Trotsky called “capitalist equilibrium,” and are one of the main mechanisms by which capitalism manages to maintain its power and reproduce itself anew. As Trotsky explained: capitalism “possesses a dynamic equilibrium, one which is always in the process of either disruption or restoration,” and it is this dynamic equilibrium — not any greater capacity for the production or distribution of necessary commodities — that has allowed capitalism to maintain itself for so long.
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As the coronavirus epidemic stretches on, working people are facing an economic collapse, the likes of which have not been seen since the Great Depression. Organizing to fight for an immediate ban on all layoffs has to be an essential part of any program to protect the working class and to make the capitalist’s pay for their crisis.
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