Louis' post provided a great deal of food for thought. My question is what
capitalist sector gained most from the restructuring of the US airline
industry, and has this restructuring altered the distribution of profits
higher up the economic food chain? Wall Street, the aircraft
manufacturers, and the airlines themselves each play a role in allocating
profits and risk in the industry as a whole. Did the
restructuring/deregulation process significantly change the share of
airline profits absorbed by interest payments? Have aircraft manufacturers
benefitted at the expense of airlines? We can see that finance capital
drove a great deal of the restructuring but has it left the industry with a
fundamentally different role, primarily that of leveraged buyer of aircraft
and servicer of debt?
Obviously it leaves airline workers severely weakened if the biggest and
most consistent share of their industry's profits accrues not to the
companies they work for but to bankers, who have the planes as security and
who can step in and reorganize when it serves their purposes. Wall St.
doesn't even mind if the workers own a big piece of an airline as long as
they get to call the shots. When finance capital sucks the profits out of
businesses that had seen great economic gains by workers, class struggle
can only advance by engaging with the real enemy.
Stuart
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
