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The Royal Bank has followed the lead of the Canadian Imperial Bank of
Commerce (CIBC) in waging a public relations campaign against the
youth. With the banks increasingly under fire for their role in the
economy and society, the banks seem to be adopting the strategy that
the best defence is offence.
In May, the CIBC issued a report on youth unemployment. It said that
the capitalists should make more of an effort to create jobs for the
youth, brandishing the very dull sword that presents the aim of
capitalist investment as creating jobs and not as making maximum
capitalist profits. Of course, the banks themselves are amongst the
most exposed of the capitalists, investing billions abroad, wherever
the return is the highest. Not a word was said about the way in which
the capitalist crisis is being further deepened by the huge debt
servicing payments the banks and other sectors of the financial
oligarchy receive from funds diverted from social spending and so on.
While attempting to completely whitewash the capitalist system and its
inherent crisis of unemployment, and the real aim of capitalist
investment, the CIBC went further and put the onus on the youth to
create their own jobs, by later announcing "entrepreneur" loan
programs.
When it comes to the youth, Canada's banks have exacted many, many
millions of dollars in interest payments on government guaranteed
student loans. In the course of the anti-social response of the
capitalists to their crisis, the already unacceptable student loan
program was further handed over to the banks, with the government
guarantee for student loans being replaced by a "risk-commission." As
the economy has worsened, and the risk of student default has grown,
the banks are now treating the students like any other clients, simply
declaring that student loans are not in their economic interest any
longer.
On top of this, they are now pushing that the youth are being
strengthened by the anti-social offensive. While the financial
oligarchy considers it only normal that the entire society should
support and pay it, when it comes to the youth, it is extolling the
virtues of self-sufficiency and not counting on society for anything.
This was the main message of a report issued by the Royal Bank with
the help of d-side, a Toronto-based "strategy firm" at the end of
June. The Royal Bank literally lauds the anti-social offensive and
presents the abdication of social responsibility by the governments as
something actually supported by the youth. "Raised in a period of
recession and debt," the report says, "members of this generation
question the state's role as stable provider and have come to accept
an increased level of individual accountability for social services,
health care and education."
The banks targetting of the youth and their attempts to whitewash both
the capitalist system and the anti-social offensive of the financial
oligarchy reflects their deep fear of the youth, particularly their
growing consciousness that the solution to the problems they face is
to put an end to the parasitic and crisis-ridden capitalist system.
All the facts, including those pertaining to banks in Canada, are
increasingly showing that the society can be brought out of the crisis
only if the trend in which the entire society is subordinated to the
interests of the financial oligarchy is ended. The need for a
moratorium on the debt and the nationalization of banks and financial
institutions is richly corroborated by the experience of the people,
and so the banks are trying to get themselves off the hook. This is
why the banks are targetting the youth, who stand as one of the most
important social forces for the transformation of the society through
the implementation of the program to Stop Paying the Rich Increase
Funding For Social Programs!
CPC(M-L)
Shawgi Tell
Graduate School of Education
University at Buffalo
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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