Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > When I posted the Louis Uchitelle NYT article about Harley-Davidson > squeezing its workers, I was hoping to start a discussion of macro economic > policy in the US in the future. My subject line (“Don't worry, the stimulus > will fix this. Not” -- Pen-l Nov 19th) failed to provoke a discussion. > Jim Devine correctly pointed out that I should have been clear I was talking > about a future stimulus when I asserted that the stimulus would not fix the > problem of the wage squeeze. > > Many on Pen L have pointed out that austerity–meaning a wage squeeze–was > inevitable, given Capitalism's need to deal with the balance of payments and > other problems without impacting profits. ...
It's not inevitable that wages will be cut. It's only given the current class balance of power that it's inevitable. > So what is the progressive response to fighting austerity? One widely > accepted move is to embrace more stimulus as a way to reduce unemployment > and thus battle the wage squeeze. But also accepted is the belief that the > stimulus is not politically feasible anymore. Perhaps less widely accepted > is the notion that a future stimulus will not be sufficient. > There seem to be two camps (at least) on the left. One is that in order to > do anything, Labor must be strengthened, and then after that we can > successfully fight against austerity and for many good things. The two issues are united, not separate: fighting against austerity (and for good things) strengthens labor, while strengthening labor helps fight austerity. > A second > camp is that we must first build socialism, and having successfully put > socialism into place, we can then fight against austerity and for many good > things. The labor movement and the fight against austerity will be strengthened by an (intelligent) fight for socialism (or whatever we want to call it). If the struggle against austerity is successful, maybe this moves us further down the road to socialism: once some victories -- even in defensive actions -- have been won, they can be built on. > In my view, if you think beyond both of those possibilities you reach the > idea, if not the conclusion, that working hours must be cut in the USA. > Moreover, in my view, cutting working hours is a necessary prior to > strengthening labor and also prior to moving to socialism. So why not work > now to build a movement for cutting working hours? Fighting to shorten the work-week (and work-year) is a good thing, but we also need to strengthen labor, since (with labor in its current weakened condition) the capitalists can easily compensate for a shorter work-year by cutting wages and salaries. The fight to shorten the work-year may encourage strengthening of labor, but it's not automatic. > There are other constituencies for cutting hours besides labor, including > multiple parts of the women's movements, the climate change movement and > environmentalists more generally, and churches. > In mainstream media we hear liberals often calling for a new and bigger > stimulus, something desperately needed at the moment, but, I think, clearly > insufficient for the task of moving towards full employment and fighting > against austerity. Why don't those voices –- no need to list them here -- > think outside the box of growth, growth, growth? In a period when real GDP is really low, so that unemployment is really high, and both of these are directly due to low demand for goods and services in the market, it's hard to avoid the idea that increasing demand for marketed goods and services (fiscal/monetary stimulus) is required. Especially given the main alternative offered by the establishment (budget balancing austerity on the fiscal front and abstention from monetary stimulus), it's not surprising that the emphasis is on demand-side "growth, growth, growth" of real GDP (and the concomitant slogan "jobs, jobs, jobs") with little or no attention to the quality of the growth or the jobs. A severe recession its the stagnant aftermath is like waiting to be hanged: it concentrates the mind on reversing the recession and its aftermath. This is one of the under-appreciated positive functions of recessions from capital's perspective. Not only does it weaken labor in terms of bargaining power, but it encourages a narrowing of focus. It's not just that efforts (by Julier Schor, Gene Coyle, Tom Walker, and others) to make people conscious of the problem of overwork become less effective but it's also making the "we need to save jobs by jettisoning environmentalism" argument stronger. Etc. It's possible that if we could somehow pressure the government and Fed to get the GDP moving again, it would strengthen labor and allow a wider and more nuanced focus. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
