[lbo-talk] Some lbo questions

brad bauerly bbauerly at gmail.com
Sun Dec 6 12:30:30 PST 2009


I guess I would like to know if the recover that does usually come after recent downturns is the result of the improvement in productivity that occurs? That is to say, is the necessary destruction or devaluing of capital which is achieved during economic crises not only of fixed capital but also of variable capital? If so, then we can see the unemployment that occurs as functional to this devaluing in that it increases the competition for jobs, creates employment insecurity and drives up productivity. This crisis is especially powerful in its ability to do this because it is also undermining one of the major sources of security which working people previously had: their homes. It is also occurring during a period of some of the highest debt levels any society has ever had in history. Therefore, the gigantic leaps in productivity gains we are seeing is occurring because of this heightened level of insecurity and the increased competition it is creating between workers due to very real and growing insecurity.

Due to the above and the quote from Marx I posted yesterday I have been doing a bit of research on unemployed movements during the great depression and what I have found is amazing. For anyone who doesn't know this history and is interested, Piven and Cloward outline how this movement sprang up and how by "March the demonstrations became a national event. The communists declared March 6, 1930, International Unemployment Day, and rallies and marches took place in most major cities" (p. 50). And they go on to describe the process of formation of the 'Unemployed Councils': "In 1929 they (the communists) began a new campaign to form 'Unemployment Councils'. During the winter of 1929-1930, Communist organizers worked vigorously, on the breadlines, in the flop houses, among the men waiting at factory gates, and in the relief offices. By mid-1930 the Unemployed had become the chief focus of party activity...[and] the party's theoretical journal, The Communist, asserted that those out of work were "the tactical key to the present state of the class struggle" (p 68). There are similar stories in England and Australia, and probably other places. Which led to my asking the question yesterday as to where are the movements to organize the unemployed today? With what, 20 million people unemployed in the US, why is no one working to organize them and to overcome the individualization of the crisis?

Brad



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