|
Illusions and the Inevitable Decline of the Global Economy
by Jack Random
 When the front page of the local newspaper reads like a Jazzman Chronicle forecasting the decline of the nation’s economy, perhaps it is time Americans take heed and begin to seek remedy.
Largely ignored by the mainstream media, the steep drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average Friday (October 19), culminating a week of steady retreat, serves as a reminder that the nation’s prosperity is unsustainable.
Corporate profits built on the exploitation of labor will inevitably deteriorate as the exploited labor force is unable to fulfill its obligation as mass consumers.
THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES: DISSEMINATE FREELY
The local papers tell the story: Working class people can no
longer make their diminishing incomes last to the next payday. Many
are choosing to skip breakfast and lunch so that their families can
have a decent dinner.
Many are discovering that there are no more jobs
to turn to and those that are available offer inadequate wages and
inadequate health benefits.
Many are realizing that their current
dilemma may not be a temporary state and, therefore, they cannot
continue to maintain their lifestyles on credit card debt.
Many are
beginning to understand that they are only one crisis away from
financial ruin and the government is unable or unwilling to help.
Many
are confronting the reality that transportation costs are claiming such
a large percentage of their earnings that the commuter workforce may no
longer be viable.
What the local papers neglect to tell is the
story of a bipartisan political conspiracy against the working class
and its agents in organized labor. Not since the age of the Robber
Barons, when a select group of elite monopolies were allowed unfettered
exploitation, have the reins of government been so completely turned
over to corporate dominance.
It required economic collapse for
the nation to awaken to the reality that corporate dominance is not a
sound economic policy. We must now wonder if the lessons of the Great
Depression have been so thoroughly lost that we must learn them again
on an international scale at a cost of unimaginable suffering.
We
have allowed the leaders of both mainstream parties to convince us that
globalization as they define it is as inevitable as April showers.
They told us that the loss of American industry would be compensated by
gains in technology. Now that we are losing technology to cheaper
labor forces overseas, we are told that innovation and education must
fill the void. What will they tell us when we discover that both
innovation and education – in the form of job training – have already
been internationalized?
We have been told that the only
alternative to the global corporate economy is protectionism – the
erection of trade barriers – and that protectionism is a sure road to
economic catastrophe.
Respectfully, it is a deception that
rivals the Bush administration’s weapons of mass destruction. Every
time we impose sanctions against regimes that violate international
law, including those that engage in violent oppression (Burma) or
genocide (Sudan), we are imposing trade barriers. When we give tax
breaks to the oil and energy industry and offer billion dollar
subsidies to corporate farmers, we are violating the cardinal rules of
free trade.
Respectfully, free trade plays no part in the
corporate globalization scheme for it does not exist. Every trade
agreement is a complex negotiation of concessions to corporate entities
in exchange for access to American markets. The commonalities of these
trade agreements are the contracting of finite natural resources and
the omission of labor from negotiations.
The fundamental
purpose behind every globalization trade agreement has nothing to do
with market access; it has everything to do with labor exploitation.
The collapse of labor within our borders is not an unfortunate
byproduct of a global economy; it is the intended and negotiated
outcome.
As globalization has advanced, corporate profits have
reached pornographic levels but the days of unaccountable profiteering
have an inevitable end. The corporate beast cannot overcome its
nature. It will not only bite the hand that feeds it, it will consume
it down to the bone. Labor is the fuel of the global economy and labor
will have its revenge.
Like Enron before the fall, the
American economy is an elaborate shared illusion sustained by the
common interests of our corporate masters and debt holders. In the
event no one noticed, while we were building a military machine that
will be obsolete within a decade, beneficiary nations like China, India
and Japan have paid for our excesses.
They are unlikely to
call the debt as long as they continue to benefit but we have
sacrificed all leverage in nations partnered with China, including
Burma, North Korea, Sudan and Iran. We can blow up as many nations as
we like, at the end of the tunnel the Chinese own us.
The day
will come when millions of workers take to the streets in China and
India, demanding living wages, decent working standards and basic
health care. Our response will be tepid and restrained as the
governments of those nations strike back with unrestrained violent
oppression.
The secret will be revealed: America has long
abandoned the working class and the rights of labor. Yet labor will
have its revenge.
The behemoth behind the immigration crisis,
the loss of health care and retirement benefits, the absence of decent
jobs at decent wages is a betrayal of the fundamental rights of labor
even in the so called “enlightened” nations.
Labor will have
its day because its place in the economic equation is essential.
Exploitation labor is no more sustainable in other nations than it is
here. The longer the rights of labor are suppressed internationally,
the greater the upheaval in response.
Ironically, the only
development that can save the prosperity of illusion from exploding in
worldwide chaos is the assertion of the universal rights of labor
before that inevitability arrives.
No one can predict the
precise moment of historic change but we can predict the logical
consequences of a course of action. If we continue to pretend that a
vibrant, prosperous economy is possible without a healthy, prospering
working class, the consequences are as catastrophic as the permanent
occupation of a Middle Eastern nation.
The illusion can be
sustained for some time by a corporate dominated media but the end
result is the same and the price will be proportionate to the duration
of the fallacy.
Jazz.
JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF
THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION
(DRY BONES PRESS). HUNDREDS OF CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON THE
WORLDWIDE WEB, INCLUDING SUCH SITES AS THE ALBION MONITOR, PACIFIC FREE
PRESS, BUZZLE, COUNTERPUNCH AND DISSIDENT VOICE. SEE
WWW.JAZZMANCHRONICLES.BLOGSPOT.COM
 |
Writings 
Subscribe to this comment's feed
