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Crisis of Capitalism
Hank Roth
The current capitalist crises is systemic. It is inherent in the system
and it was inevitable---the insatiable greed, the corporate drive for
maximum profits. This is the essence of capitalist class order and the
root cause of the crisis.
The results we're all familiar with, it is the millions of um-employed,
the millions of homeless and the millions of part time and underemployed,
with bankruptcies at all time high, with debt maxed out. Today, there are
already many successive generations of homeless children, of families and
of veterans. When do we put an end to this madness?
There was more social security under feudalism. Feudalism in the middle
ages provided at least a built-in-work-welfare system. The entire
relationship was based on mutual responsibilities. But with capitalism
there is built-in-unemployment. Under feudalism the lord had his captive
labor supply, the serf, who could at least count on his family being cared
for if he died or became too old or sick---until the Black Plague, which
wiped out 2/3rds of the population in England. This labor shortage forced
wages up and the government imposed laws requiring workers to accept any
employment from anyone willing to hire them and to stay within their own
parish. Beggars were subject to punishment and some were even mutilated to
death.
Guilds were established to care for the aged and infirm and provided aid
to members in need but private efforts were not equal to need and in the
16th century the government stepped in to regulate and provide welfare.
Those who remember Henry VIII as a tyrant might be surprised to know he
was also the first to provide organized welfare for his subjects.
At the same time those who didn't work, vagrants and beggars were dealt
with harshly. Anyone who was able bodied was expected to work. These laws
were known as the Elizabethan Poor Law and it wasn't until 350 years later
that the U.S. also enacted legislation that was at least in part based on
that model. The Amerikkkan system however also saw wealth as a sign of
god's favor.
In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt declared no child should be removed
from its own home for reason of poverty.
The current crisis in Amerikkka is a crisis in welfare. The charge that
social welfare programs under Clinton encouraged the very conditions they
were presumable designed to alleviate are self-serving rationalizations
which essentially have been used to avoid the responsibility society has
to provide for the needs of the poor and the disabled who are seeing even
their needs ignored.
Whereas, people are quick to offer simplistic solutions for complex
problems based on their own prejudices and by blaming the victims for
conditions largely caused by unregulated capitalism. Victimizing the
victims of societal indifference does not really solve anything and most
simply reach for conclusions that are based on emotional half truths and
right wing propaganda, which tend to be false and there is an inherent
evil in this thinking that ignores the needs of the poor in favor of the
rich and the human misery that the Reagan and Bush Administrations with
the help of the Congress have inflicted on so many. Welfare goes beyond
even humanitarian concern for others; it goes beyond altruism. Without it
society would not have any stability at all and in Amerikkka we have
compared to other industrial countries very little social welfare.
The crisis of capitalism is a crisis of racism. It is the terrible infant
mortality rate. It is the fact that there are more Americans in jail than
ever before and more than any other country in the world and more
African-American young men in jail than there are in college. It is a fact
that we have more people in jail per capita than any other country in the
world. It is a fact that we torture prisoners and lock them up without due
process. It is a fact that Bush fascism is popular with those who blame
the poor and the victimize the victims. And it is a fact that
drug-infested crime infested ghettos and barrios in our country, those
places where only poor people can live, are places where hope and future
are two words never heard.
Hank Roth
All quoting, if any, is per the Fair Use Doctrine
for educational and discussion purposes pursuant to
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, Copyright Law.
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