The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production - antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence - but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

Karl Marx, A Contribution To The Critique of Political Economy, 1859

Capitalism kills!

“We are on a course charted for disaster.” - Klaus Töpfer's sober pronouncement at the launch of his publication, Geo-2000. Töpfer is the director of the United Nation's environmental program; and this bureaucrat has reason to worry - 1998 was the hottest year on record! September 1999 was the 33rd record breaking month for heat in Quebec. These dramatically higher temperatures have for effect the rarification of drinking water sources. Geo-2000 predicts that by the year 2025, water shortage will affect two thirds of humanity. Among the recent mishaps that some scientists link to the chain reaction associated with global warming, is the detachment of giant icebergs from crumbling Antarctic ice shelves. Twenty-seven of these monsters, some exceeding 18 kilometres according to the October 27th edition of Le Monde, are drifting in and out of shipping lanes, posing a real hazard for maritime commerce in the southern hemisphere. Sea level, too, is rising as a result. And evidence of global warming's effect on the speed and movement of winds continues to make headlines. Geo-2000 says consequently that losses attributed to natural disasters in the decade between 1986-1995, were eight times what they were in the 1960's. Yet the bourgeois state remains unmoved, continuing Myth and Reality Even amidst the fanfare of editorialists and economists touting statistics showing the so-called vigour of the American economy, the odd, countervailing voice draws chilly attention to America's bare backside. Thus, even the prestigious New York Times recently had to pay lip service to a description of capitalist America, not quite in sync with the prevailing babble. So, we read in its February 27, 1999 edition that there were three dozen soup kitchens and food banks in New York City in 1980. By 1992, the growing impoverishment of workers excluded from the American Dream had raised that to 600. At the beginning of this year, soup kitchens and food banks numbered 1100! The Times estimates that the nutritional needs of all these “beneficiaries” of capitalist prosperity will double by the turn of the new millennium, adding that food resources are starting to run out... to spread the means of our annihilation. Carbon dioxide emissions, alone, are rising by 300 million tons per year. This is the rationale of a system bent on production for profit rather than usefulness. It is a mode of production that ruins our existence, and threatens us with ecological catastrophe of planetary proportions. Capitalism holds endless horrors in store for us; it is more than time that we put an end to the horror of capitalism.

The cost of "prosperity"

The Spring/Summer issue of Internationalist Papers, a Bordiguist magazine, contains important information on the price American workers pay to finance their “national prosperity”. Quotes from a recent book by Andrew Ross, "No sweat: fashion, free trade, and the rights of garment workers" (New York: Verso, 1997), reveal little known facts about the contemporary resurgence of garment industry sweatshops in most American cities.

Sweatshops are defined as plants where wages are never low enough, hours never long enough, and where health and safety hazards threaten the very lives of workers.

Ross cites a 1996 report from the US General Accounting Office estimating that a third of the 6500 plants in New York were sweatshops. In Miami it was 400 out of 500, while in Los Angeles it was a staggering 4500 out of 5000, with hourly rates, there, often as low as a dollar US! In one case reported by The New York Times, June 12, 1998, bosses imposed work shifts of 12 hours, seven days a week! And we haven't even touched on the underground economy where child labour is on the rise...

Capitalism lies!

"Workers' Reality: More Hours, Less Pay." The bourgeois press has long been bombarding us with propaganda of a so-called booming American economy, which has all but eliminated the crisis; and, if not for its clashes with reality, would have more of us droning the chorus that both nation and worker are doing well. But issue No.109 of Internationalism ⁽¹⁾ has come out with a rather interesting article that examines just that - workers' reality in the USA.

This image of the American worker's condition, is one that certain elements of the capitalist state may have preferred to keep under wraps awhile longer. But the author, citing figures published by the Fiscal Policy Institute of Albany concerning the City of New York, is able to reveal that:

statewide, incomes declined by 8% since the late 1980's, while for 40% of the poorest families,Ê it fell between 13 and 15%. [...] In New York City, average income fell by nearly 20%. What a recovery!!!

And that's not all.

The typical working class family has been putting in 256 more hours of work per year --more that six additional full-time weeks than in it did in 1989. In other words, the typical working class family in New York must work harder and longer to earn 20% less.

Add to that the numerous cuts to the social wage, (employment insurance, welfare, etc.), and you get a better idea of the content, the conditions, and the value of the American economy's alleged recovery.

So, any recovery of capitalism's economic course, in the United States or elsewhere, is nothing but a recovery on the course towards the abyss into which the bourgeoisie seeks to drive us. Hope of reforming such a system is hope set on a leaking boat. To hell with the life jackets! Let the old mole of the Revolution launch its missiles ⁽²⁾ and its torpedoes. Humanity is more than ready for its next vehicle!!!

(1) P.O. Box 288 New York NY 10018-0288 USA.

(2) In his correspondence to Johann Philipp Becker on the plan of publication of Capital, Marx wrote:

It is certainly the most formidable missile that has ever been thrown at the head of the bourgeois...