Social Conditions Deteriorate in the United States
The necessity for the
independent politics of the
working class and an
anti-war pro-social direction for the
economy
In a series of articles, the mass media have
presented lurid
exposures of inhumane living conditions in the
United States.
Social conditions for many in cities in
California, the
Northwest, New York and elsewhere are shown to
have become
untenable. Thousands of people in city after city
live outside on
sidewalks and parks with little access to
sanitation and other
public services. The housing situation for workers
in Silicon
Valley is said to be so desperate that the Apple
Corporation has
decided to invest $2.5 billion to build rental
housing for its
workers and others on land it owns in San
Francisco.
The New York
Times has detailed serious social
problems in
health care, education, and housing and the
corrupting influence
of big money in the cartel party system of the
Democratic and
Republican Parties. The items suggest inequality
of social wealth
between the rich and poor is the root problem and
not a symptom
of a deeper issue, and that redistribution of
accumulated wealth
is necessary if social problems are to be solved.
 Other articles
refute this approach and declare the "American
Dream" to become rich and to "fend for yourself"
have made the
nation dominant in world affairs, while state
redistribution of
wealth is contrary to the "American way." The
dispute is often
presented as a conflict of outlooks and policy
objectives between
the two established cartel parties and within the
Democratic
Party itself.
The articles on inequality of wealth, amongst
other sources,
rely on recent research from economists Emmanuel
Saez and Gabriel
Zucman,found in their book, The Triumph of
Injustice: How the Rich Dodge Taxes and How to
Make Them Pay. They argue the
concentration of wealth in a few hands has become
so great as to
be untenable, resulting in unresolved social
problems that only
increased taxes on the rich can resolve.
The data reveals that 400 rich U.S. households
currently own
more social wealth than the entire population of
those of African
descent, around 48 million, plus a quarter of
those of Latin
American and Hispanic descent, another 14 million
people. The
richest top 0.1 per cent has seen its grasp of
U.S. social wealth
nearly triple from seven per cent to 20 per cent
between the late
1970s and 2016, while the bottom 90 per cent has
seen its share
of wealth decline from 35 per cent to 25 per cent
in that same
period.
The richest 130,000 families in the U.S. now hold
nearly as
much social wealth as the bottom 117 million
families combined.
The top one per cent own 42 per cent of the
country's entire
social wealth. The articles do not break this down
as to what
constitutes wealth other than general references
to stocks,
bonds, ownership of companies and property,
houses, cars,
disposable income etc.
From this mass of accumulated wealth and
investments,
ownership of property and companies and from
positions as
executives and directors, the richest individuals
constituting
one per cent of the total population realize
annual incomes
amounting to 20 per cent of the total reported
income in the
United States. In contrast, the reported income
for the vast
majority of working people comes not from
investments and
ownership of property but from selling their
capacity to work to
those who own and control the socialized economy.
According to the tax research of Saez and Zucman,
the families
in the top 0.1 per cent are projected to owe 3.2
per cent of
their total wealth and income in federal, state,
and local taxes
for the year 2019, while the bottom 99 per cent
are projected to
owe 7.2 per cent of their accumulated wealth and
income.
The data and subsequent analysis concentrate on
the possession
and distribution of social wealth in money form.
From this, the
analysis arrives at the conclusion that increased
taxes on the
rich will solve the problems facing the people.
But is a lack of
money the cause of the dreadful social conditions
and
problems?
 Saez and Zucman
point to a period in U.S. history from the
beginning of WWII into the 1970s when the rich
paid much higher
taxes and their share of wealth was one-third
relative to what
they control of the total today. However, the
situation during
the earlier period did not result in the
realization of the right
of all to health care, education, housing, proper
sanitation, and
security in retirement and when injured, sick or
disabled. The
increased funds in government hands relative to
the total social
wealth during and after World War II led to
militarization of the
U.S. economy. The U.S. ruling elite did not use
the increased
funds to guarantee the rights of the people with
extensive social
programs and free public services but to establish
thousands of
military bases within the U.S. and around the
world, wage
continuous wars under the imperialist banner of
"containment of
communism," and build its war arsenal of modern
weaponry,
including naval armadas, warplanes, tanks,
artillery, assault
rifles and vast numbers of nuclear bombs and
missiles.
The U.S. state does not have a lack of money. It
has an annual
war budget of around a trillion dollars plus
billions more for "homeland security," countless
internal and external spy and
police agencies, money for "diplomatic"
interference in the
sovereign affairs of others, pay-the-rich schemes
for big
business, and money to pay for pro-war imperialist
propaganda,
armed mercenaries and prisons to incarcerate over
two million of
its own people.
The research and series of articles in the mass
media leading
to the conclusion of a lack of money to solve
problems ignore the
outmoded relations of production between the
working class and
financial oligarchy and the contradiction between
a socialized
economy and its control by competing private
interests, which are
the root of the problem of inequality and
powerlessness of the
working people to deal with the conditions they
face. Those who
do the work and sell their capacity to work to the
rich have no
economic or political control over the economy and
have access
only to that portion of the new value they produce
paid to them
in wages and whatever social programs that may
exist in exchange
for their capacity to work.
The rich who own and control the productive
forces, the
direction of the economy and the cartel party
political system of
the Democratic and Republican Parties expropriate
added-value
from the new value workers produce. Taxation has
become a broad
method of the financial oligarchy to take back
from working
people what they have been paid in exchange for
their capacity to
work. The ruling elite of competing factions of
the financial
oligarchy and their political representatives have
control over
how that value is distributed and used. The
prevailing relations
of production dictate the control of the ruling
imperialists over
the economy and its direction. The politics of the
cartel party
system of the Democratic and Republican parties
reflect the
control and domination of competing factions of
the ruling
elite.
Most social programs such as education and health
care result
in increased value of the capacity to work of the
working class.
The companies that consume this value should pay
for it not
through taxes but by directly paying the
institutions that
produce the value. To increase individual and
social
reproduced-value demands action to bring into
being increased
investments in social programs and free public
services, higher
wages, pensions and benefits for workers, an end
to paying the
rich, and a new anti-war pro-social direction of
the economy.
The U.S. working class is faced with a class
struggle to
organize itself as a viable social force capable
of defending its
rights, forcing the rich to increase the
reproduced-value working
people receive in exchange for their capacity to
work, and
through its own independent politics open a path
forward to
democratic renewal and a new direction for the
economy.
An independent political program and
nation-building project
of the working class and its allies to empower
themselves through
democratic renewal include increased investments
in social
programs and free public services to guarantee the
rights of all,
and actions to stop paying the rich and to
dismantle the war
economy and give it a new pro-social direction.
This can be
accomplished through the development of the
organized independent
politics of the working class and its own
thinking, outlook and
agenda in opposition to the politics, outlook and
agenda of the
rich and their cartel party political system of
competing
factions of the financial oligarchy.
The working class and its allies must develop
their own
independent politics, media, voice and democratic
personality.
They cannot rely on the rich and their political
representatives
within the cartel party system and mass media to
act or speak on
their behalf, solve the social problems facing the
country, chart
a new anti-war pro-social direction for the
economy and country,
and open a path forward to the emancipation of the
working
class.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 32 - December 21, 2019
Article Link:
Social Conditions Deteriorate in the United States
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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