Click here to access article by Jerry White from World Socialist Web Site.
While the author shows in some detail how the capitalist legal process is being used to settle Detroit's debts in a socially unjust way, but for some strange reason--given that this piece is posted on a "socialist" website--he overlooks a fundamental reason why Detroit's unpayable debts exist at all.
Missing in this examination, which focuses on the trees instead of the forest, is the fact of private ownership of Detroit's economy whose private "owners" as constructed under a capitalist system allowed them to simply move their industry, built by Detroit workers, to other places all over the globe wherever they could find cheaper labor to rent.
It also ignores that capitalists are a ruling class, and as such have constructed all important institutions in the society over which they rule, the most important of which are the legal and governmental institutions. Therefore, it is no surprise that the bankruptcy proceedings for Detroit and the attack on worker's pensions are playing out as they are.