Whacked by prosperity

All that prosperity swinging around is likely to you a concussion.

The stock market has been falling for the last week — according to the pundits, because too many people have jobs, and those jobs pay too well. (Never mind that millions of people who lost work at the outset of the pandemic are still looking for work, that wages are falling relative to inflation, that millions are set to lose their health care coverage in the coming months, that evictions are skyrocketing as landlords boost rents into the stratosphere…)

That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it.

They believe that we’re drowning in prosperity because the rich — and the pundits are mostly from the top 10% or so — are swimming in money. Corporate profits reached record levels during the pandemic, even as many people struggled to survive (and a great many of us didn’t make it — about a million are known to have died from Covid, and many others were forced onto the streets). Gas companies are raking in monopoly profits. CEO pay is up. The wealth of the wealthy just keeps on growing.

So there’s plenty of prosperity, but you’ve got to be careful as it goes around because those wielding it are likely to knock you in the head, and stomp on you once you’re down.

15 million to lose health care

Some 15 million Americans will be dropped from expanded Medicaid coverage once the Covid-19 health emergency is declared over — something the federal government says could happen any day now, though the polytricksters promise they will give 60 days notice before actually cutting off people’s health coverage. The state of emergency bars states from kicking people off Medicaid while the pandemic raged, but its funding has expired and the Senate has blocked proposals to extend coverage. So we are reverting to current law, which requires states to regularly conduct reviews to make sure those ineligible for the government-funded health care scheme are kicked off. Some states, of course, are far more aggressive in looking for excuses to cut off health care.

Some people will have become ineligible because their income has risen above the cut-off point, even though they still don’t make enough to afford health care. Some moved without letting the bureaucrats know. And many – perhaps most – haven’t returned the complicated paperwork to demonstrate their continued eligibility. Many, many people have long gone without coverage because they were unable to navigate the bureaucracy.

This is the inevitable result of a health care system organized around profits. In such a system, the services available to poor people will always be inferior and harder to access – the more difficult the better. And even for those who have health coverage, the system is organized around erecting as many barriers as possible between workers and the health care we need.

Economy Booming – For the Top 5%

U.S. Census data released in mid-September shows that 2015 wages rose significantly for the well-off; a result newspapers heralded as strong wage increases that were pulling millions out of poverty. Although wages for the top 5 percent are up 3 percent since the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, those in the bottom fifth are still down 5.2 percent in inflation-adjusted income. (Workers in the bottom 80 percent have lost ground across the board, but the poorest workers were hit the hardest.) And while women workers are now making more than they were in 1973, though still significantly less than their male counterparts, men’s wages are $2,152 less, after inflation, than in 1973. (The Economic Policy Institute has an unduly optimistic take here.)

The growth in 2015 income is mostly attributed to workers taking on more hours, often in the form of second jobs, and partly to what the government claims was 0% inflation (though those having to pay rent, go to the hospital, or buy groceries will likely have had a different experience).

New Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

ASR 67 is on the press, and features articles on the folly of electoral politics, a history of anarchism in Ukraine, anarchism in the 21st century, and a short piece from me looking at the devastation posed by 50 years of economic stagnation — to the point where nearly half of Americans tell the Federal Reserve Bank that they would not be able to come up with $400 if they were hit with an unexpected expense that high, and would have to borrow the money or let other bills slide to cover it.

Greece: No Alternative under capitalism (in progress)

Greece has capitulated, leading to celebration on financial markets and despair among many Greeks. There was no alternative, the Syriza government says, because the European Central Bank had cut off credit to Greek banks, effectively forcing them to close. And there can not be a (capitalist) economy without banks.
We are repeatedly told – and not just by mainstream economists, many Marxian economists echo this as evidence that capitalism has entered its final days – that “there is no alternative” to austerity and immiseration.
Some, more critical, suggest that there is no alternative under capitalism. But even this isn’t true. Some governments responded to the economic crisis with austerity, and paid a heavy price for it. Others leavened their fervently proclaimed adherence to austerity dogma with a light dose of Keynes in an effort to prevent total economic collapse, as did the UK Tory government. (Now, having secured re-election, they pledge to bear down on the austerity full throttle.) And some engaged in very mild stimulus policies, trying to revive the economy — the United States provides an example of the very tepid economic “recovery” that results, which is why pro-capitalist economists like Paul Krugman have been arguing for much more vigorous intervention.
There are a wide range of alternatives available under capitalism, none of which are oriented toward meeting human needs. Some focus more on restoring immediate profitability and securing timely repayment of loans; others focus more on economic and social stability, reckoning that these are essential to the long-term viability of the capitalist economic system. (Even the International Monetary Fund vultures agree that Greece’s debts can not be paid without destroying what remains of the economy, and has proposed debt relief.)
The Greek politicians were being held hostage by austerity dogmatists, and apparently could not conceive of an alternative that was not sanctioned by central bankers and financiers. But alternatives certainly existed, such as leaving the Eurozone altogether, repudiating the debt, and rebuilding economic activity from the ground up or some sort of mixed approach where Euros and local currency would co-exist. Worker-operated factories and other enterprises could build a sort of alternate economy, relying on barter or other means of exchange to create economic spaces for survival. Such approaches are entirely consistent with capitalism, and could leaving existing relations of exploitation relatively unscathed (something apparently important to Syriza). There are also revolutionary alternatives, though the challenges to building a new economic and social order in so small a space in the face of a determined and united capitalist opposition would be substantial.
One this is clear: there is nothing natural or inevitable about austerity economics or debt repayment. Indeed, as Thomas Piketty notes, Germany rejected the road it has demanded Greece follow, twice refusing to repay its debts and securing international agreement for substantial debt relief. Decades of austerity policies around the world have made two things clear: (1) austerity is the recipe the powerful impose on the weak, but never on themselves; and (2) austerity can only lead to immiseration and economic collapse.

We can no longer afford the rich

Pundits’ bleating about the need to further gut workers’ pensions and health benefits has reached a deafening roar. In New Jersey, the governor warns that the state can not afford to pay its share into public employees’ pension funds. Illinois just slashed pensions because it also “could not afford” them. Similar is happening all over.

Next time your grocery bill look a bit daunting or the mortgage check is about to bounce, I suggest you follow the lead of our eminent polytricksters and explain that your bills are unsustainable, and so you will just have to “restructure” your obligations. I’m sure they would be glad to settle for 50 cents on the dollar.

General Motors, which is now looking at record profits thanks to deep concessions from its unions and millions of dollars in assistance from the rest of us working stiffs through our taxes (much — but far, far from all — of which it repaid interest-free; the rest was a gift I’m sure you were glad to give), has so much cash on hand that it’s buying back its stock. And, of course, it’s asking for new concessions from the autoworkers.

The Philadelphia Daily News’ Will Bunch asks if we can afford these parasites. Shockingly, he concludes that they are a luxury we no longer can afford after decades of austerity, off-shoring production, speed-ups, tax cuts for the rich, and the like.

Bakunin bicentenary

Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #63 completes a two-issue commemoration of the bicentenary of Bakunin’s birth with articles on the emergence of anarchism within the First International, the introduction of anarchism to Spain, and a brief review of recent scholarship on Bakunin.

Other articles examine anarchism and technology, the consequences of austerity in Great Britain, Colin Ward’s anarchism, the London dock strike of 1889, anarchism and Kobani, and Malatesta’s anarchism.

Half a pension too much for bankers to stomach

Bankers and bondholders have said they will appeal a judge’s tentative decision to slash the pensions of Detroit’s retired and soon-to-retire public employees in half. The cuts should be much deeper, they insist, so that the shareholders and coupon clippers can get a higher pay-out. That workers will likely lose their homes, go hungry, and finish out their diminished lives in destitution under the proposed plan is of no concern to them. What are thousands of starving workers to parasites who need the proceeds of the labors of hundreds of workers to support them in the manner to which they have become accustomed?

Financial Advice for Workers

McDonald’s continues to provide useful financial advice to its workers, in an attempt to counter the growing movement for a $15 hourly wage for fast food workers. First they advised workers to get a second full-time job, turn off the heat, and live in a flophouse. Then they suggested workers cut meals into tiny bites so that it will seem like they’re eating more. They’re advising long-time workers to apply for food stamps and other welfare programs. And they suggest workers sell their Christmas presents for a little bit of pocket change.

More than half of U.S. fast food workers earn so little that they rely upon food stamps and other public assistance to survive. Many more are eligible for benefits, but don’t claim them. McDonald’s flacks try to spin this by point out that more than 40% of their workers earn $25,000 a year or more. That’s probably true, but it includes managers and marketers and executives in corporate HQ. And it tacitly admits that more than half earn less, which suggests that even under the U.S. government’s very conservative definition, most McDonald’s workers live in poverty.

But the CEO and the shareholders are doing just fine, and the Dow Jones average is setting new records day by day.

Working Hungry

Today, a 5 percent cut in food stamps benefits took effect, affecting nearly one in seven U.S. workers and their family members. (Most recipients work, many full time — indeed, the McDonald’s financial advisors trying to help workers better manage their money so they won’t need higher wages are now helping their workers sign up for food stamps.)

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has proposed eliminating food stamps altogether, so as to free up more funds for subsidies to corporate farmers. (This is probably a bargaining gambit rather than a serious proposal, though you can never be entirely sure with these polytricksters.) The Democrats have counter-offered a 10 percent cut.

Already, the benefits are so meager that recipients run out of food a week or more before the end of the month, resulting in surging traffic to food kitchens and soup banks.

Such are the wonders of the “free” market, and of wage slavery more generally.