how unequal we are

One of my friends posted this article on Facebook yesterday:

How Unequal We Are: The Top 5 Facts You Should Know About The Wealthiest One Percent Of Americans

While I think it's interesting in that it points out certain statistics which highlight the underlying symptoms, the real problem is that the capitalist system won't fix itself no matter how much we try to regulate it or leave it alone. It also needs to be pointed out that, as another friend of mine put it, "It's the nature of this system to produce this toxic accumulation of debt AND wealth."

If we want a real solution — one that does more than simply mitigates the symptoms — we need to start rethinking the capitalist system itself; and in my opinion, start working towards creating a new economic paradigm that's characterized by collectively owned and democratically controlled production based on need rather than profit.

But for me, particularly, economic democracy (i.e., socialism) isn't so much about the equality of wealth or outcomes as it is the de-privatization (i.e., socialization) of opportunity and the weakening of class antagonisms and hierarchies arising out of social relations unique to capitalism and other predominately exploitative systems. As Karl Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy:

Social relations are closely bound up with productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production; and in changing their mode of production, in changing the way of earning their living, they change all their social relations. The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist.

And if the growing popularity of the Occupy Wall Street movement is any indication, it seems like people are finally figuring out how badly they're getting fucked by the owners and controllers of all this wealth:

double standards of the nypd

Yesterday, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested for blocking the roadway when a bottleneck formed on the walkway and a large group of protesters took to the roadway instead, obstructing traffic in one lane for several hours. Yet when a 1992 protest consisting of thousands of off-duty police officers degenerated into what one New York Times article characterized as "a beer-swilling, traffic-snarling, epithet-hurling melee that stretched from the Brooklyn Bridge to Murray Street," blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge in both directions for hours, no one was arrested. Double standards much?

some thoughts on occupy wall street

On the one hand, I'm sympathetic to the idea of Occupy Wall Street and what people are trying to do. I see it as a grassroots push back against the people and institutions that not only helped cause the latest economic collapse, but collectively represents the very embodiment of the expropriator class that expropriates massive amounts of wealth from working-class people in the form of uncompensated labour.

Basically, the money that Wall Street is playing around with is all the money expropriated by capital from the working class in the form of surplus value (i.e., unpaid labour), which is the primary source of what we call profit in the capitalist system of production. The stock market essentially takes all this wealth and tries to increase it for its holders via gambling, investing and shuffling it around, while at the same time acting as a freeway for the distribution of capital between other capitalists throughout the system.

Many people seem to think that 'markets,' including the stock market, can do no wrong, even when the markets themselves are full of people and large financial institutions moving things around in an effort to profit off of the ups and downs, which, in turn, creates even more ups and downs. Unfortunately, when markets crash, as they inevitably do, it's ultimately the working class who suffers the most — enduring everything from extended periods of high-unemployment to higher costs of living to depleted 401Ks and IRAs, etc. — while for Wall Street, it's business as usual.

One of the lessons I've taken away from Occupy Wall Street, however, (and perfectly illustrated by this article) is that the left seriously needs to relearn how to organize, as well as how to get its message out more effectively since the media often seems to downplay (read, 'completely ignore') these kinds of events (which, consequently, brings up the question of the place and use of digital/social media by activists and some of the problems they're facing).

This isn't a criticism of Occupy Wall Street as much as leftist activism in general, which, on the whole, seems to have become increasingly less focused and militant over the years. While left-wing social and political movements tend to have no problems springing up over various issues and events, they seem to dissipate almost as fast, particularly more radical movements, once initial momentum is lost. Movements can't sustain themselves without long-term commitments on the part of activists; and the left needs to find more creative ways to spread its message, as well as to keep people actively engaged in struggles. Occupy Wall Street seems to be off to a good start, though.

And while I think that the recent influx of union support for Occupy Wall Street is definitely a good thing, what we really need are more radical unions (like the IWW, for example) that are willing to be instruments of revolutionary change rather than just mediators between capital and labour. Historically speaking, unions have tended to deradicalize working-class movements they're a part of due to their dependence on, and basic deference towards, the employing-class and capital.

Moreover, as heartened as I am by this upsurge in left-wing/working-class activism, I'm still afraid that it's a case of too little, too late. The right has been far more organized in recent decades; and the rise of right-wing led, middle-class populism has little in the way of organized opposition besides a few scattered groups and a shrinking number of severely weakened unions. And if history is any indication, middle-class populism left unchecked can eventually morph into fascism.

Of course, I could be wrong about the potential direction that all of this populist anger might take in the future (assuming it doesn't just fizzle out into political apathy); but I still feel strongly about the need for the left to get better organized, and that depends on working people getting more active whenever and wherever they can. In end, I completely agree with the article, "A spotlight on Wall Street greed," that:

While Occupy Wall Street has shined a spotlight on the inequality in U.S. society and the power held by financial elites, a single action like this won't be enough to win the reforms desired by participants if it fails to link up with other movements. Doing so will require struggles rooted in workplaces, communities and schools--which highlights the need for activists to begin organizing around issues that impact people's daily lives in ways that involve people with families and jobs, who may not be able to participate in an action like Occupy Wall Street.

Update, October 2, 2011: I read two excellent analyses today addressing some of the predominately leftist criticisms of Occupy Wall Street (including my own), particularly the charge that the movement itself is unfocused and lacks any real direction: "The Nuts and Bolts of #OccupyWallStreet" and "First we take Manhattan."

the question of unions

A friend of mine today wrote, "Unions are great until they show their dependence on and basic deference toward the employing-class & capital, their bargain partners." I think it's an excellent point that's often neglected by the left, particularly socialists (including myself), in their tendency to promote anything slightly favouring the working class.

As just one of many historical examples, I think the close connection between the Social Democratic Party of Germany and trade unions in the late 1800s/early 1900s is one of the things that eventually helped deradicalize the SPD for this very reason, i.e., instead of being instruments of revolution, the unions increasingly played the role of mediator between the classes; and the SPD had to become less and less radical to maintain the support of the growing unions and their membership.

Union complacency as mediator between capital and labour is an issue I think the radical left has yet to solve in any practical sense, especially now that unions are about all that remains of the organized left in this country. It's almost a stimulus-response to defend them at this point.

Even if unions manage to survive this latest economic downturn and onslaught of populism from the right, the question still remains of how to radicalize them and then, if possible, keep them from becoming complacent as mediators in a system where one class expropriates the wealth produced by another when what we really want is a different system altogether.

the straight dope

The amoral (if not immoral) truth of the stock market straight from the horse's mouth*: many traders don't care about the overall health of the stock market or the broader economy; all they care about is making money from its up and downs (and especially its downs if you "know what to do" and have the means to do it). And Goldman Sachs [along with other large financial institutions] rules the world:



Of course, not all traders are so ambivalent about the overall health of the economy. But many people seem to think that the 'markets' can do no wrong, even when the markets themselves are full of people moving things around in an effort to profit off of the ups and downs, which, in turn, creates even more ups and downs. And its not just traders who do this, but large financial institutions, as well.

The way I see it, if their intent is to profit from the stock market (or any other for that matter) regardless of its health or the effects their decisions might have on it (which I imagine is fairly common), we have a problem because it's ultimately the working class who suffers the most when shit inevitably hits the fan, enduring everything fron extended periods of high-unemployment to higher costs of living to depleted 401Ks and IRAs and more.

*Word has been going around that Alessio Rastani may be part of the Yes Men, a group that impersonates corporate entities and "big-time criminals" in order to publicly humiliate them. While it could be possible that Rastani is an independent trader and a member of the Yes Men, both the BBC and the Yes Men are currently denying this.

deep recession sharply altered u.s. jobless map: why the rich love high unemployment, part deux

Saw this article from yesterday's New York Times:

Deep Recession Sharply Altered U.S. Jobless Map

The last line of the article reads: "'I would look at it as our dreams are delayed,' he said, "rather than our dreams being denied.'" Maybe I'm just being cynical, but the 'American Dream' is all smoke and mirrors, if you ask me. As if there's a big difference between being denied and being delayed indefinitely.

Whatever the case, the article does shine a light on how bad this economic downturn has really been; so much so that it's altered the nation's economic landscape, with states in the Rust Belt now faring better than many of the 'boom states' in the Sun Belt.

Even more depressing, however, is that "only 16 of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas have regained more than half of the jobs they lost during the recession," and the fact that we had more people living in poverty last year than in any year since the Census Bureau began keeping records half a century ago. It reminds me of this article from Truthout, which reads like Marxism 101, albeit through a liberal/social democratic lens.

As I ranted once before, capitalism, by its very nature, requires what Marx termed the "reserve army of labour" (i.e., the unemployed), which is one of the tools it uses to create and increase the profit it extracts from the labourer and the commodities their labour produces.

What the second article calls "labor-market flexibility" is the capitalists wet dream, i.e., an insecure labour pool that can be hired and fired at will, at whatever wage and however many hours the employer deigns to give (further supported by articles like this). And as the Truthout article points out, the mechanisms that the ruling class use to help 'fix' the economy ultimately end up benefiting big capital and the wealthy, not the workers (who make up the majority of the population).

Which is completely counterproductive, of course, when you have a consumer-based economy and very few of the consumers can afford much beyond their basic means of subsistence. In the context of a global, capitalist economy, however, capital can invest elsewhere (whether abroad in foreign markets or in stocks and bonds) and still increase its profits and those of its shareholders, while the average worker is left struggling.

The whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. How anyone can find such a system moral, or simply preferable to something which is less exploitative, is beyond me. /rant

the future of organizing in the digital age

First, Yahoo! was caught blocking Occupy Wall Street-related emails (they later claimed it was an unintentional error); and now word on the interwebs is that Twitter has been blocking #occupywallstreet from trending. (You can check out the trend map for #occupywallstreet here.)

It's hard to say whether this is true because of the way trending topics are identified and circulated; but if it is, it makes one wonder where the interests of digital/social media companies like Twitter and Yahoo! really lie: with their users or with Wall Street. (And with stories like this, I'm leaning more towards Wall Street.)

So what are the implications assuming both stories are true, or at least have the potential to be true at some point in the future? I suppose the answer to that will depend on the type of analysis you give it. From a more theoretical/critical standpoint, for example, it evidences that private companies have a tendency to favour the interests of capital over the interests of users/consumers/etc., which isn't all that surprising.

From a more practical standpoint, however, I think it raises some serious questions about the place and use of digital/social media in regard to organizing, specifically how it can help or hinder those utilizing this growing medium based mainly upon the whims of those in control of these services and methods of communication.

Only a few months ago, for example, people were touting the use of social media when it was being used by activists to organize in places like Iran, Egypt, etc., where things like the right to free speech and the right to peaceably organize don't really exist in any meaningful way, if at all. But here in the US, where we do have these protections, our use of them is potentially being limited/censored by the private interests that own and control them because they're coming into conflict with the interests of the ruling class, especially those of wealth/capital.

It brings up issues from censorship to the security of the people who are trying to organize (e.g., the ability of corporate interests to reveal names, locations and correspondences of activists to governments) to whether the internet and certain online services should be regarded as part of the commons since they're fast becoming an integral part of how we communicate and function as a society. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Because digital/social media is such a relatively new phenomenon, it'll be interesting to see how we, as general users and activists alike, approach these issues as they develop, particularly when many of our ideas about them may well be influenced by the very medium and corporate interests in question.