To Win Significant, Long-Term Change in America, We Need Class Struggle by Nick French, Jacobin, March 28 https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/biden-stimulus-american-rescue-plan-welfare-class-struggle
Analysis of Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) has been all over the map. Some commentators have hailed it as a sea change <https://twitter.com/EricLevitz/status/1368235676135735299> in American welfare <https://jacobinmag.com/2021/03/stimulus-bill-eitc-ctc-tax-credits> and fiscal policy, or even the end of neoliberal orthodoxy. Others have emphasized the relief package’s shortcomings <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/03/joe-biden-relief-bill-child-benefit-anti-poverty>. The Left seems uncertain, wrestling with how to relate to the Biden administration and the (narrowly) Democratic-controlled Congress. . . . To achieve socialist transformation, workers need to organize and empower themselves to wrest control of their workplaces from capital, to socialize finance, and to institute public ownership of health care, energy, transportation, and other major economic sectors. In the meantime, we can fight for reforms, like Medicare for All <https://jacobinmag.com/2018/12/medicare-for-all-study-peri-sanders> and a jobs guarantee <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/case-for-job-guarantee-review-pavlina-tcherneva> , that make it easier for workers to organize and fight back. But winning even these reforms will require increased pressure from below. As policy, there is plenty to like in the ARP. But debate about policy pros and cons threatens to obscure more fundamental questions about the balance of class forces in society and what the bill does — or doesn’t do — to change that balance. In other words, the real problem with the bill is about *power*: Who has it and who’s using it to demand or give relief? Right now, it’s the capitalists. And nothing they’re doing is significantly giving workers more power. To change that, we need more class struggle. ### -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#7592): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/7592 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/81691761/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
