Michael Moore doesn't say it outright, but those viewers who remember history can understand that, just as European countries, even ones like Britain that were (and still are) afflicted with liberalism (which makes welfare states stingier than social democracy), were establishing socialized medicine, America was plunging into the Red Purge, so the Americans missed the window of opportunity that all other peoples in advanced capitalist countries managed to seize.
Moore also drops a hint about the vicious circle in which the Americans are trapped. The French above all other peoples in advanced capitalist countries, and other Europeans to a lesser extent, are freer to rebel than the Americans in part because their lives are protected by a web of social services provided by the state, health care being just one among many, which their past struggles conquered when the working class were more organized, so they are not as preoccupied with daily struggle, and, more importantly, not as fearful as most American workers are. Look at the faces of American workers, especially poorer ones. Many of them have had their minds and bodies destroyed, and it shows. They look demoralized.
Is it possible for less organized Americans today (when most better organized workers elsewhere are fighting mainly to preserve their past achievements and largely failing to do so) to win what they couldn't win when they were better organized, when their organized labor was at their peak strength quantitatively?
On 7/21/07, Russell Grinker <grinker at mweb.co.za> wrote:
> Doug wrote:
> I think it's a broader class interest in keeping American workers
> weak, scared, and dependent. Trying to find literal things like
> interlocking board memberships seems like vulgar Marxism (in the
> debased sense).
>
> Doesn't even Doug's explanation presume a bit too much organised
> self-consciousness of the US ruling class? Isn't the point more that (in
> general) the reproduction of the US labour force doesn't currently demand
> the kind of significant state intervention people are talking about?
> Secondly, there's the lack of substantial mass pressure for any sort of
> universal state health scheme.
Maybe US automakers want to first push current unionized employees out (through buyouts and the like), divest themselves of as many obligations to retirees as possible (passing them on to the union and the government), expand production in the global South in the meantime, and make a comeback into the US market once they are liberated from high US labor costs, peculiar legacies of American-style big unionism and small welfare state, through attrition.
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a6YxQw1iHkY0&refer=home> GM Narrows Sales Gap With Toyota on Non-U.S. Demand (Update5)
By Kae Inoue and Greg Bensinger Enlarge Image Dealerships for Toyota and General Motors
July 20 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp. outsold Toyota Motor Corp. in the second quarter, buoyed by sales in China and Latin America, as it battles to maintain its 76-year reign as the world's largest carmaker.
GM sold 2.405 million vehicles globally, compared with Toyota's 2.367 million, in the three months ended June 30, the carmakers said in separate statements. That cut Toyota's lead in the first half to 42,000 from 88,000 in the first quarter.
``Vehicle sales are the last milestone where there's any real competition,'' said Yoshihiro Okumura, who helps oversee the equivalent of $365 million at Chiba-gin Asset Management Co. in Tokyo. ``Toyota has led GM in investment and profits for a long time.''
Toyota, 58 times more profitable than GM, won customers in the U.S. with Corolla and Camry cars. GM has found new buyers in Asia and Latin America, making China and Brazil the Detroit-based company's second- and third-biggest markets.
In the first half, Toyota sold 4.716 million vehicles, while GM sold 4.674 million. Toyota, which earns as much as 60 percent of its operating profit in the U.S., took a 16.1 percent share of the U.S. market in the first six months, up from 14.6 percent during the same period in 2006. GM's share fell to 23 percent from 24.3 percent as it pared low-profit sales to rental-car companies, which get discounts for buying in bulk.
Market Value
Toyota's American depositary receipts fell 80 cents to $122.91 at 4:02 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading and have fallen 8.5 percent this year. GM shares declined 46 cents to $34.92 and have gained 14 percent this year. Toyota's market value is more than 11 times the size of GM's.
In the three months ended in March, Toyota earned 440 billion yen ($3.6 billion) compared with $62 million at GM. Net income will rise 0.4 percent in the year ending March 31 to 1.65 trillion yen, the Toyota City, Japan-based company predicts.
``To the average guy, Toyota is now the gold standard for autos,'' said George Magliano, the New York-based research director for Global Insight Inc. ``GM is not picking up enough of the retail customers to make up for their rental cuts, so they're losing sales across the board.''
GM's second-quarter sales fell 7 percent in North America, while rising 8.2 percent in the Asia-Pacific region, 4.7 percent in Europe and 20 percent in Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
Toyota's sales include those of subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. Toyota group sales should grow 6 percent to 9.34 million vehicles in 2007, the carmaker said in December. Production will rise 4 percent to 9.42 million vehicles.
`Solidly Placed'
``Regardless of any U.S. auto market slowdown, the Japanese auto names look solidly placed to benefit from this and Toyota looks best positioned among all the Japanese,'' said Amir Anvarzadeh, director of Japanese equity sales at KBC Financial Products in London.
Toyota expects U.S. vehicle demand to be at 16.3 million to 16.4 million units in 2007, little changed from last year.
``North America is a mature market, it's not growing,'' said Gerald Meyers, a business professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He said total U.S. vehicle sales volume has been 16.5 million to 17 million for the past 10 years.
`Zero-Sum Game'
``The fight in the United States or North America is not over `How can we get more volume as the market grows?' It's `Who can I get the volume from?' It's a zero-sum game,'' Meyers, a former American Motors Corp. chief executive officer, said in an interview.
Gasoline prices have topped $3 a gallon in the U.S. for the third consecutive year, helping Toyota's sales surge 8.8 percent in the U.S. during the first six months to a record 1.33 million vehicles. GM fell 6.8 percent and Ford dropped 11.3 percent. Toyota's U.S. sales grew 13 percent to 2.54 million last year.
Toyota is boosting North American production capacity at the industry's fastest pace. By 2010, it expects to be able to make as many as 2.2 million cars and trucks in the region, compared with 1.6 million last year. It will add capacity to build 600,000 vehicles at five plants in North America by 2010.
``Becoming No. 1 by sales has never been our goal, and it's just a result of what we have been doing,'' said Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe on June 27 in Tokyo. ``We want to be the world's best automaker by offering the best products.''
GM's CEO, Rick Wagoner, is seeking to boost sales in emerging markets such as Russia, India and China.
In the second quarter, the U.S. company's sales doubled in Russia, climbed 23 percent in Brazil and rose more than 6 percent in China. In the U.S., GM's sales of cars and light trucks fell 8 percent to 999,278, according to Autodata Corp.
``GM seems to be doing well in emerging markets, and that seems to be the right strategy for now as sales in the U.S. aren't strong,'' said Koji Endo, a senior analyst at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kae Inoue in Tokyo at kinoue at bloomberg.net ; Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1 at bloomberg.net Last Updated: July 20, 2007 16:17 EDT -- Yoshie