More Peoples Weekly World commentary
Seth David Schoen (schoen@uclink4.Berkeley.EDU)
25 Nov 1997 03:15:43 GMT
I found this essay in the Sproul newsracks today. Maybe I will post a
reply to it after the Thanksgiving break.
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BASICS
by Gus Hall, national chair, Communist Party USA
There can be no peace in the class war between labor and capital, between
workers and bosses, because the sole aim of the corporations is to keep
maximizing profits. Maximum profits and labor peace are absolute,
irreconcilable opposites.
Corporate profits come only from one source, from the exploitation of
workers. The more exploitation, the more profits. Thus, the lower the
wages, the more profits. Speedup means squeezing more production in
the same number of hours for the same wages, thus increasing profits.
Downsizing means mass layoffs, while the remaining workers sustain the
same rate of production, increasing the rate of profits.
Racism is very profitable. Discrimination resulting in lower wage scales
means increased profits for the corporations. The ideology of racism
is based on the economics of profits. Racism was designed to justify
inequality in jobs, wages, hiring and promotion.
Lower wages for women workers means corporations make more on the labor
of women.
Using high technology is more profitable. Under capitalism it means lower
wages and loss of jobs for workers.
Real wages have been declining for some 20 years, while corporate profits
have been going up at a dizzying rate. We have reached the point where
two-thirds of all the wealth of our country is owned by 10 percent of the
very rich.
Buying and selling distributes profits, but this process does not make
profits. For example, you can buy a dozen eggs for $2 and sell them for
$3, making $1 on the deal. The buyer and seller _exchanged_ $2 eggs for
$3. In that exchange nothing was made or produced because simply exchanging
things does not add any value.
WHERE PROFITS COME FROM
In the production process labor power is the key. _This is where corporate
profits come from._ Bosses add nothing. Management adds nothing.
The stockholders, investors, owners add nothing.
The value of labor power is measured by what it costs to keep reproducing
it -- food, housing, clothing, etc. Labor power is the only facet of the
production process that produces more than its own value.
This was one of Marx's greatest discoveries. He spent his life revealing
and scientifically proving that labor power is a commodity, that it is
"a source not only of value, but of more value than it has itself".
Thus, UPS created at lower-wage, two-tier wage system to increase corporate
profits. The wage structure of UPS was $12 an hour for 65 percent of the
work force and $19 per hour for the rest, although the lower-paid workers
did the same work, often within the same hours. The lower-paid workers
were the main source of the $1 billion profits UPS raked in last year.
The working class produces more than it gets back in the form of wages.
And it is the difference between the added value this class produces
and what it is paid back that is the source of all profits. The less the
workers are paid back, the higher the rate of profits for the bosses.
For example, if a worker produces $24 worth of goods in an hour, the
value of an hour of labor is $24. If the worker is paid only $8 per
hour, the extra going to the boss is $16. The rate of surplus value or
profit is 200 percent.
This process is living proof of the correctness of Marx's statement of
the irreconcilability of the interests of capital and labor and the law
that, "profit rises in the same degree in which wages fall; it falls in
the same degress in which wages rise."
STRUGGLE IS OVER PROFITS
The class struggle is the struggle between the workers and the corporations.
Workers and their unions are locked in battle with corporate America for
a bigger share of the value, the profits, that workers produce.
The struggle between the two dominant classes also sets the framework for
all political activities in our country. There are other contradictions,
other factors that influence the political picture, but the most
fundamental and long-range influence is the struggle between the two main
classes under capitalism. The power and organs of government, and most
of the laws that are passed, are instruments in this struggle.
The ideological war -- the struggle for the minds of the people -- is in
fact a reflection of the class struggle. This struggle is the most basic
influence on all political, social, economic and philosophical trends.