Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The US worker is a beaten commodity

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The US worker is a beaten commodity

Click here to access article by Jim O’Reilly from his blog, Comments on Global Political Economy.

Without concerted political pressure for radical change, the forces of unbridled capitalism, like a plague of locust, are poised to consume all in its path. The worker has no institutional support, the Democrats being completely in hock with money, and unions having long ago sold their soul. All forces within the logic of capitalism, from ever advancing productivity to massive foreign competition point to a horribly bleak future.

Under capitalism nearly everything is reduced to being a thing that is bought and sold in a market. Under globalization and the neo-liberal policies pursued by the Empire, American labor is now competing with workers for all over the world. This is hugely beneficial to global corporations and they are now sitting on mounds of cash because of this. But, where is the social justice in this development? Did not the workers through their mental and physical efforts build these corporations? Of course, but capitalism as a system was designed to serve a small group of people who laid claims of "ownership" of social enterprises, and claim the wealth created by working people. They merely rent workers. Hence, capitalism subverts any notions of social-economic justice.