[lbo-talk] Unproductive Workers = The Best Organized in the USA

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> I may have missed it (haven't read the whole thread) but have you  
> touched on how you would answer right-wingers who argue public  
> employee jobs, pay and benefits should be slashed because they  
> increase the tax burden on workers in the private sector, and that  
> for this reason the right to strike should also be withheld from  
> public employees, and, where applicable, removed?
>
> MG

If the profit rate in the private sector goes down too much, in the  
end the public sector can't be financed (you can borrow and pay  
government workers for a while).  At bottom, the public sector is  
more dependent on the private sector than the latter on the former,  
economically.

To the extent that capitalists succeed in decreasing taxes on them  
and increasing taxes on workers, as US capitalists have, it becomes  
politically difficult, too, to create support for public sector  
workers among private sector workers, especially if private-sector  
workers are much less organized than public-sector workers, as in the  
case with the USA.

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>