The potential of a deep economic crisis looms over U.S. society. As is always the case under capitalism—a system based on maximizing profit rather than meeting people’s needs—an economic downturn takes its greatest toll on the workers.
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Despite having the greatest productive capability ever, the U.S. capitalist economy cannot avoid devastating periodic collapses.
For workers, it is this material reality that can unveil the true nature of the capitalist system and provide the potential for the emergence of a revolutionary movement for a society built around a sustainable, planned economy that produces rationally for people’s needs.
Both McCain and Obama speak about the economy on the campaign trail, but only to squelch an independent working-class movement. The candidates act in the interests of the capitalist class.
Obama and McCain offer no real housing relief
On their websites, both Obama and McCain provide informational packages advertised as solutions to a worsening economy. McCain’s package is named “Jobs for America, The McCain Economic Plan.” Obama’s is called “Keeping America’s Promise, Strengthening the Middle Class.” After careful examination of their proposals—despite much highfalutin rhetoric—their plans remain as bankrupt as Indymac Federal Bank.
The housing market crisis serves as a prime example of the bourgeois candidates’ inability to put forward real solutions to the problems faced by workers. In the U.S. today close to 740,000 homes have been foreclosed. That is an 121 percent rise over 2007.
McCain proposes something called a “HOME Plan” where, theoretically, homeowners can trade in their mortgages for a “manageable loan.” The character of this loan is purely theoretical. Its highly restrictive eligibility standards include creditworthiness at the time of the original loan. This assumes fault on the part of buyers rather than at the hands of lying and greedy lenders.
Furthermore, the “manageable loans” will be based on current creditworthiness for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages—easier said than done when workers face deteriorating living conditions in most sectors of the economy, including record-setting credit card debt.
Obama’s plan boldly proclaims that it “will provide immediate relief to homeowners who are facing foreclosure or struggling to make their mortgage payments.” The “immediate” help that Obama’s campaign speaks about is a stimulus package that also touts “fiscal responsibility.”
In a January article of The Nation, one of Obama’s economic advisers is quoted as saying “One advantage to the tax credit is that there’s no moral hazard involved. There’s no sense in which you’re rewarding someone for taking too big a risk. If you lied about your income in order to get a bigger mortgage, then you’re not qualified. Do you really want to give a subsidy to the guy who wasn’t prudent?” In other words, the Obama campaign also lays blame on the workers. It would give those in need a tiny tax credit but provide no genuine relief to save their homes.
Unlike Obama, the La Riva/Puryear campaign sees no “moral hazard” in putting the right to suitable housing as a top priority. The La Riva/Puryear campaign calls for an immediate moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. and the right to a home. Workers shouldn’t have to lose their homes or go homeless as a result of the housing crash. The housing crisis is a result of the inherent instability of the irrational for-profit capitalist system, not the “sins” of the working class.
Big Oil, the big winners
Another economic concern for workers is the rising prices at the pump. McCain promises to take “immediate” action on rising gas prices. McCain half-heartedly proposes a summer gas tax holiday that would suspend the 18.4 cent federal gas tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Obama is also guilty of exaggerating the importance of his own proposal. Obama proposes the U.S. government sell 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But according to an article by US News, this amounts to less than 1 percent of the 7.6 billion barrels of oil consumed yearly by the United States alone.
In contrast, the La Riva/Puryear campaign proposes short-term as well as longer-term solutions that are the only real alternatives to rising gas prices. During World War II, for example, there were price controls on gasoline and other goods. There should be a genuine investigation of the crimes of the oil industry, conducted publicly and broadcast live with full transparency. A special tax should be passed on the windfall profits that the oil companies have wrung out of the people through manipulation. Executives should be tried and if convicted, imprisoned.
The answer to the gas price question also necessitates a longer-term solution. The rise in prices is tied to the depreciation of the U.S. dollar. There is no quick fix to this problem. Fluctuations in the value of currencies stem from the competitive, for-profit nature of the world capitalist system.
Workers ultimately need the expropriation of the oil and gas industries and their reorganization on a centrally planned, not-for-profit, socialist basis. Only then will it be possible to assure that the global energy resources are used in a sustainable way to meet the needs of all. Mass transit systems should be built and expanded across the United States, and public transportation should be free.
A job is a right
Finally, the issue of unemployment is talked about ad nauseum by McCain and Obama. Yet neither one presents a solution that can even remotely begin to tackle such a gargantuan problem.
The problem of unemployment is the root cause of many social ills and the main reason for the existence of the largest prison-industrial complex in the world.
What is the solution of the bourgeois candidates to the problem of joblessness? They have none. To the contrary, they are fully aware that the capitalist class thrives off a certain level of unemployment.
The capitalist parties defend the rights of corporations to eliminate jobs, shut down plants and squeeze workers to protect their profit margins. These are the real causes of unemployment and underemployment.
Furthermore, neither capitalist party wants to reform the prison system to make it truly rehabilitative and help prisoners reenter the society as decently paid workers. The prisons serve as virtual concentration camps for the poor, incarcerating people from disproportionately unemployed and super-oppressed communities.
The 15-page booklet offered by McCain “Jobs for America: The McCain Economic Plan” is full of empty promises. He includes vague rhetoric about improving employment insurance to better assist workers who have lost a job, but says nothing about real job creation.
Likewise, instead of pointing the finger at Wall Street and the corporate elite for unemployment, Obama blames China and the “failed policies” of the Bush Administration for moving jobs abroad.
But, while criticizing some aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Obama campaign defends “free trade” in general, and has vowed to retain NAFTA.
The PSL presidential campaign calls for the trillion-dollar U.S. military budget to be used instead to create millions of union jobs. The country’s infrastructure, schools, hospitals, housing, the environment, care for seniors and children—all these are in need of drastic improvement and an influx of workers.
The minimum wage should be raised to $15 per hour. This would make a huge difference in many workers’ lives. Over the last two decades, workers’ wages have fallen farther and farther behind inflation, and the tiny capitalist elite has taken home an even greater share of total income. The La Riva/Puryear campaign is committed to building a fighting labor movement to turn back this trend.
Neither the Democratic nor Republican parties will advance any proposals that directly contradict the aims of big capital. Neither is providing solutions, for the simple reason that they cannot. There is no way to eliminate recessions, poverty or unemployment so long as the question is posed in the context of the capitalist system.
The PSL campaign is focused on building a workers’ movement to struggle against the big banks and corporations. In doing so, the campaign will also point to socialism as the only alternative to the deteriorating U.S. capitalist economy.
For more information on the La Riva/Puryear campaign, click here.
