***** Proportion of Americans Without Health Insurance Drops, First Decline in 12 Years
(September 29, 2000) Census Bureau figures show approximately 42.5 million people in the US (15.5 percent of the population) had no health insurance last year, down from 44.2 million (16.3 percent) in 1998, the first year the bureau began compiling such data.
The decline in the number of uninsured children was even greater, from 11.1 million (15.4 percent) in 1998 to ten million (13.9 percent).
But there was no change in either the number or percentage of the uninsured poor. Among the poor who worked full-time, 47.5 percent had no health insurance during any part of 1999....
<http://www.cancerpage.com/cancernews/cancernews1729.htm> *****
That's what American workers get *at the height of a decade-long economic boom*. A slight drop in the number of the uninsured in the overall population, but no change "in either the number or percentage of the uninsured poor"; & among "the poor who worked full-time, 47.5 percent had no health insurance during any part of 1999." 15.5 percent of the population with no health insurance (& the rest of the working class who suffer from precarious access to & increasingly exorbitant costs of health care) seems to me to be a great foundation upon which to build a radical movement on the Left. The Democrats don't offer universal health care to American workers, but those of us to their left do. The Democrats don't offer an end to the war on drugs & crimes, but those of us to their left do. Most American workers prefer not to send American soldiers to foreign interventions, but the Democrats & Republicans do; those of us to the left of the Democrats promise foreign policy in line with American workers' true interests & actual preferences.
American workers -- even in the midst of neoliberal capitalism's best boom times ever -- were not as comfortable as many PEN-l posters imagine them to be (and now the boom is practically over -- we only wonder how bad & how long the coming recession will be). Therefore, I conclude that it is *the absence of a clear political program & energetic political organizing* -- not economic booms, much less "comfortable" American workers -- that is responsible for a poor showing of the American Left.
We can't afford to bitch & mourn & blame each other & workers for capitalism's resilience. We have to organize, organize, organize.
Now, more importantly, what is "comfort" of workers under capitalism? "Comfort" = relatively high wages & cheap consumer goods, provided workers are employed.
***** A rapid growth of capital is synonymous with a rapid growth of profits. *Profits can grow rapidly only when the price of labor -- the relative wages -- decrease just as rapidly.* Relative wages may fall, although real wages rise simultaneously with nominal wages, with the money value of labor, provided only that the real wage does not rise in the same proportion as the profit. If, for instance, in good business years wages rise 5 per cent, while profits rise 30 per cent, the proportional, the relative wage has not increased, but decreased.
If, therefore, the income of the worker increased with the rapid growth of capital, there is at the same time a widening of the social chasm that divides the worker from the capitalist, and increase in the power of capital over labor, a greater dependence of labor upon capital.
To say that "the worker has an interest in the rapid growth of capital", means only this: that the more speedily the worker augments the wealth of the capitalist, the larger will be the crumbs which fall to him, the greater will be the number of workers than can be called into existence, the more can the mass of slaves dependent upon capital be increased.
We have thus seen that even the most favorable situation for the working class, namely, the most rapid growth of capital, however much it may improve the material life of the worker, does not abolish the antagonism between his interests and the interests of the capitalist. Profit and wages remain as before, in inverse proportion.
If capital grows rapidly, wages may rise, but the profit of capital rises disproportionately faster. The material position of the worker has improved, but at the cost of his social position. The social chasm that separates him from the capitalist has widened.
Finally, to say that "the most favorable condition for wage-labor is the fastest possible growth of productive capital", is the same as to say: the quicker the working class multiplies and augments the power inimical to it -- the wealth of another which lords over that class -- the more favorable will be the conditions under which it will be permitted to toil anew at the multiplication of bourgeois wealth, at the enlargement of the power of capital, content thus to forge for itself the golden chains by which the bourgeoisie drags it in its train.
(emphasis added, Karl Marx, _Wage Labour and Capital_ at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1840/wage-lab/ch08.htm>) *****
You see, Marx & Engels published _Wage Labour and Capital_ as an introductory pamphlet, an elementary propaganda material for _uneducated_ workers _without_ any prior acquaintance with political economy. They trusted workers to understand what exploitation is, what surplus value is, what the difference between "labor" and "labor-power" is. Engels wrote: "My alterations centre about one point. According to the original reading, the worker sells his labor for wages, which he receives from the capitalist; according to the present text, he sells his labor-power. And for this change, I must render an explanation: to the workers, in order that they may understand that we are not quibbling or word-juggling, but are dealing here with one of the most important points in the whole range of political economy; to the bourgeois, in order that they may convince themselves how greatly the uneducated workers, who can be easily made to grasp the most difficult economic analyses, excel our supercilious 'cultured' folk, for whom such ticklish problems remain insoluble their whole life long" (at <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1840/wage-lab/intro.htm>). Most of today's leftists & even Marxists evidently think, in contrast to Marx & Engels, that workers either can't understand or don't care about what exploitation is & in any case don't desire an end to exploitation as long as their wages are "relatively high," i.e., relatively high only when compared to some other workers', not when compared to profits (& many leftists themselves only talk about inequality, injustice, etc., forgetting the foundational question of freedom). Leftists apparently have come to imagine American workers either are happy with or cannot possibly want to break "the golden chains." Leftists sadly underestimate workers, in my opinion; when leftists underestimate workers, it is no wonder that workers lack the political will & means to break "the golden chains."
Fundamentally, Marxism is a philosophy & political project of *universal social emancipation, freedom from exploitation & all oppressions*: "In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all." Even the highest degree of "comfort" during the best of capitalist booms (which cannot but be temporary) can never substitute for "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all."
Why sell our birthright -- freedom -- for a mess of pottage?
Yoshie