The increasing unemployment. The transformation of the United States from a manufacturing powerhouse to a service-based industry. The creation of a economy built on the hedge-fund gambling, legerdemain and chicanery of Banking Institutions. The destruction of the Appalachian mountains for strip mining, the wholesale dumping of thousands of tons of petcoke in poor Chicago and Detroit neighborhoods are the end product of Capitalism.
For years Americans enjoyed the "benefits" of Capitalism as wage slaves in third world nations made products and corrupt banana republics gleefully exported their natural resources for Corporate exploitation.
But, while Labor Unions were shedding their blood and generations of Americans fought for better working conditions benefits and pay here at home, Capitalists were fighting back.
Prior to the modern age, Capitalists employed two basic weapons, illegal immigration and off-shoring of jobs. The Rich are fully in support of illegal immigration because it imports workers who are willing to do jobs here in the United States for lower pay, no benefits and if something happens to them those workers have little recourse or legal options.
But, Capitalists have also fought for years to break down barriers across Nation-States to make capital liquid, because once capital can flow freely then labor can be completely undercut.
NAFTA, CAFTA and the Trans Pacific Partnership are efforts by the 1% to be able to move their capital quickly and without restraint and to "create jobs" where costs are the cheapest. The 'Job Creators' touted by Republicans have no connection to the United States and see no difference between a Mexican worker, an Indonesian worker or an American. To the Job Creators whomever they can pay the lowest pay up to and including outright slavery is the "best".
Those manufacturing jobs currently in China and various third-world wage slave dictatorships are not coming back to the US. Until the day when US labor costs less than that overseas, worker protections are eliminated and anti-pollution regulations are stricken from law by Republican operatives.
And that is Capitalism; it's the impoverishment and enslaving of 99% of the world to enrich 1%.
Capitalism without strong regulation is akin to slavery.
ReplyDeleteWhat the top 5% forget is that the middle class keeps them safe from the poorest. Neither do all the poor understand the middle classes worth. To over simplify it, say pre revolution in any number of historical settings: the rich want always to increase their advantages and their wealth and hold the poor in disdain, the poor at times will try to bring down the rich by demands both legitimate and revolutionary. Only the middle class moderates and buffers both. The fault mainly falls on the rich, who pillage both poor and middle class, reduce the size and well being of the middle class and the buffer is gone. With the fall of the rich it is not guaranteed that things will turn out well. It is the rich who push society to this test, they, risk takers, will risk all of our futures, guaranteed they will.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Jerry. Some of those regulations we used to have included tariffs. Some call regulating trade with tariffs "protectionism", but without tariffs what we're protecting is the ability of the plutocrats to screw workers here and exploit them abroad. Trade can be beneficial, but only if it is fair and reciprocal.
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