------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
A CENTURY OF RULING CLASS ROMPS By Heather Cottin New York The arrogance of the ruling class is boundless. While increasing numbers of people in this city are forced to depend on soup kitchens and food pantries to stay alive, the leaders of the world capitalist system will be plotting and partying at the elegant Waldorf-Astoria hotel. They will be following a long tradition begun by their class. In the Gilded Age--the late 19th century--the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Belmonts, Morgans and other ruling-class families attended extravagant balls at the original Waldorf, then located on Fifth Avenue and 34th Street. At one party, according to author Matthew Josephson in "The Robber Barons," the men were given cigarettes wrapped in $100 bills and the women received 14-karat gold bracelets as favors. There was a terrible economic depression in the period between 1890 and 1900. The annual amount necessary for a family to live was about $500, according to the "Historical Statistics of the U.S." In minutes, these industrialists and bankers smoked up what amounted to one- fifth of a family's yearly survival. One night in 1897, at the depth of another economic depression, one of the fabulously wealthy men of the age, Bradley Martin, had the entire lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria transformed into a Hall of Mirrors like that in the French monarchy's palace in Versailles. August Belmont wore a suit of armor marked with gold inlay worth $10,000. Women wore beautiful and expensive jewels as if they were corsages. (From "Protestantism in America: A Narrative History," by Jerald C. Brauer) The ruling rich, then as now, were aware of the poverty running rampant through the cities and the poverty that was forcing thousands of farmers off their land. They were the cause of it all. How did the wealthy elite show their sympathy for the plight of the workers? By throwing what they called "poverty socials." A Western millionaire had the ballroom in his home decorated as a hobo camp and his ruling-class guests came in rags and tatters. It cost $14,000 to serve them "hobo stew" on wooden plates. The cost of the party was roughly equal to what it would have cost to feed, house, clothe and provide for 2,800 families for a year. But as the economy declined, working people, immigrants and farmers joined together against the banks, the corporations-- the system workers called "wage slavery." Populist leader Mary Lease thundered to a crowd in Kansas in 1890, "Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street and for Wall Street." THE BIGGER THEY ARE, THE HARDER THEY FALL The city of New York paid the Astor family $17 million for the land under the original Waldorf-Astoria. The Empire State Building was later constructed on the former site of the hotel. The new Waldorf-Astoria was opened at its present location--with much ceremony as a playground for the ruling classes--in 1931 during the Great Depression. Now the Waldorf-Astoria is host to a new generation of Robber Barons with their global view of manifest destiny. Today's ruling class created the World Trade Organization to assure their global dominance of capital over labor. But they are not like the bourgeoisie of the late 19th century who were mainly concerned with owning the means of production in the United States. These modern-day capitalists are meeting now to plan for further global plunder. They have completed the conquest of the world planned by the Robber Barons of the late 19th century. But, like the capitalists of the late 19th century and the 1930s, they are worried. And for good reason. As the capitalist financiers, corporate moguls and paid policy wonks skulk around the Waldorf-Astoria, they know that the economic crises of the late 19th century have multiplied exponentially. The system is foundering and the World Economic Forum has no idea how to save it. The rich may feel secure in the Waldorf-Astoria. With police between them and the angry protesters outside, they may believe that the horrors of poverty, unemployment, hunger, disease and the myriad ravages of capitalism will be forever accepted by the workers and oppressed peoples of the world. They may think that their armies can help them maintain control of a world capitalist system that the imperialists of the late 19th century could only imagine. They may believe they can wage endless war and workers everywhere will accept it. But if they look outside the Waldorf-Astoria, they will see that their world is crumbling. From Allentown to Zimbabwe, working and oppressed people are growing wise to the machinations of these World Economic Felons, who have stolen the resources and land and made the lives of the people in every corner of the world miserable. A truly international working class now confronts the imperialist ruling class. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
