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Self-Serving Imperialist
Definition of State Funding for "Systemically Important" Privately-Owned Businesses The amount of debt the federal and other governments are incurring under the conditions of the pandemic is alarming as both the lenders and the government expect it to be paid back with interest. The brutal neo-liberal anti-social offensive unleashed in the early nineties after free trade was launched in the mid-eighties has always been justified under the claim that there is no alternative to paying the rich. In the beginning of the wave of anti-social measures taken under neo-liberalism, the claim to justify paying the rich was that deficits and the resulting debts were incurred due to bad policies of governments that were on a spending binge to finance the social welfare state and the time had come to get rid of deficits and debt. The logic was that Canadians were "living high off the hog" and that, as a result, they now had to pay for their sins. Today, the conditions of pandemic are cited to justify massive borrowing from private lenders which will take a huge toll on the society. Not a few are fooled into believing that the borrowing by the state makes it "public spending on social programs" but the public authority has long-since been destroyed as narrow private interests have directly usurped the public institutions and turned them into their exclusive purview. The fact is that deficits and borrowing were incurred in the past to pay the rich and programs to "eliminate the deficit and pay down the debt" had the same aim. Now, the lenders consider the current crisis a windfall of unprecedented proportions for which they believe the people will happily pay. The state is at their disposal as are the ministries of the Trudeau government, working furiously to rationalize pay-the-rich schemes to support "private enterprise." Pay-the-rich schemes have long been rationalized as supporting private companies that are "too big to fail," not only for their own sake but that of the economy, workers and country. In the present context of the global pandemic, the governing elite are giving huge sums of money borrowed from private lenders to privately-owned companies and, in particular, to those they consider "systemically important" to the economy and country, which they say must be "publicly supported." In the not so distant past, the capitalist mythology was that the competition in the market would sort out winners and losers amongst companies. Some would win and become bigger while others would be either swallowed up or go bankrupt and disappear. This was considered efficient even though it gave rise to anarchy of production, regular economic crises and suffering amongst the working people who lost their jobs. Under imperialism where the financial oligarchy dominates all political, economic and social affairs, the ruling elite have adjusted the mythology to serve their private interests. They contend the competition of the market is no longer sufficient to sort out winners and losers and that those in control of the state should do that by deciding which big companies are vital to the economy and viable and should receive funds from the state when in trouble or even just to expand under the banner of becoming competitive in the global imperialist economy. The private companies chosen to receive funds from the state are often labelled "systemically important businesses," as if this makes it proper and just and not gross corruption and pandering to the rich and powerful. What should the working people think of this imperialist mythology? If the state is going to fund these "systemically important private businesses" should the people not have a say in their subsequent aim and in addition exercise control over their activities and how the value that their workers produce is distributed? Should not some mechanism and form be developed to make these "systemically important private businesses" serve nation-building and the people, and be held to account for their activities? Or should it just be business as usual with the rich becoming richer, the poor poorer and the economy suffering its regular crises, with festering social problems remaining unresolved and working people blocked from political empowerment.
Also, workers are told the existing one-sided unjust social relation will remain between the imperialist oligarchs who buy workers' capacity to work and those who sell it. Why should this be? If the state is doling out money to save these "systemically important" private enterprises and others, workers at least have the expectation of a change to equilibrium in the social relation with those who buy their capacity to work and not a continuation of the one-sided unjust state-supported dictate they now endure. The money to pay the rich through bailouts, loans and other means comes from the new value workers produce. It may seem to come from taxes but that is a deceptive illusion. The value arises from what workers produce. No other source exists within the modern economy. Whether the value is seized through taxes or some other means does not change the fact that the working people have produced the value to be handed over to these "systemically important private businesses" and others.
Increased investments in social programs and public services and enterprises that serve the people and economy are badly needed. The pandemic has made this perfectly clear. The owners, from their social position as those in control of the private enterprises that receive funding from the state, are still in a position to expropriate the new value workers produce and to use it anywhere in the world according to their narrow private interests. This is not right! If the state is going to fund these "systemically important" private businesses and others, then the outcome and aim must favour the public representing the majority who are the producers and the workers who produce the new value, and not favour the privileged few, the minority who are not the producers. If those in control refuse to accept an arrangement that favours the people and nation-building and equilibrium between those who sell their capacity to work and those who buy it, then those private enterprises should not receive any state funding and should survive or die on their own. Funds are needed to increase investments in social programs and public services and enterprise, they are needed to look after laid-off workers and find them employment in public enterprise and to strengthen the needed tendency within the economy towards a new aim to serve the well-being of all and nation-building with the development of a diverse planned economy that becomes a bulwark against economic and other crises.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
Why should the
working people, who are the human factor in
creating social product, agree to fund these "systemically
important private businesses" with public value that workers have
produced and which is now supposedly under public/government
control. Why should they agree if the aim of these companies
remains the making of maximum private profit for a privileged few
who may live anywhere within the imperialist system of states and
use the money from profit to favour themselves? This makes no
sense. Having their companies saved or enlarged through state
funding, these private enterprises and their global owners will
not and do not change their stripes and outlook. They do not now
reject their imperialist outlook and aim and suddenly become
concerned with the people's welfare and nation-building. They
still want to expropriate the new value workers produce and will
not allow it to be used to finance social programs and public
services and enterprise that favour the people. They declare
legal and just that the value they expropriate is their own to
use as they see fit, whether for their private enjoyment or in
competition with other oligarchs and enterprises within the
imperialist system of states. Within this position of strength of
private ownership of the productive forces and the value workers
produce, they receive the complete support of the cartel
political parties in government and the agencies, police and
military forces of the imperialist state.
The working class
has the expectation that the value they have
produced which goes to governments, should play a positive public
role and not a narrow private one to sustain the class privilege
of the rich global oligarchs. Governments do not make this clear
nor do they put forms and mechanisms in place to ensure the
proper use of state funds.