Inequality has put 100 million Americans below poverty line

[M. Sarmad]

The “lost generation” and the failure of capitalism
18 September 2013

A basic measure of the viability of a political and social system is the position of the youth. A society that holds out for the younger generation prospects that are worse than those held out to their parents and grandparents is a society that has ceased to progress and begun to regress—one that has lost any claim to historical legitimacy.

How does contemporary capitalism measure up to this standard? Five years after the economic collapse of 2008, young people have suffered a decline on a global level that in many ways is without historical precedent. By every measure—employment prospects, income, home ownership, indebtedness—conditions are far worse today than at any time since the 1930s. And there is no prospect of recovery.

This decline has the most far-reaching implications in the center of world capitalism, the United States. An article appearing in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend pointed to the impact of the jobs crisis in particular on what it called the “new lost generation.”

The Journal pointed to certain indices of the decline. The share of the population aged 16-24 in the US that is employed is 5.6 percentage points lower than it was before the crash, and has remained largely flat since 2008. The median weekly income of this group has fallen more than 5 percent since 2007, a product of both falling wages and declining hours.

“Little more than half [of young people] are working full time—compared with about 80 percent of the population at large—and 12 percent earn minimum wage or less,” the Journal noted.

The common experience for millions of young people is permanent economic insecurity. Many have moved back to live with their parents, lacking the financial resources to start a family or purchase a home.

College graduates leave school with a debt burden that is crippling both economically and psychologically. The banks and debt collectors suck up whatever income is left after outlays for basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter. In households that carry student debt, the average amount of debt has tripled since 1989, to over $26,000.

Between 2000 and 2012, wages for recent college graduates fell by 8.0 percent, while according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, wages for recent high school graduates have fallen a shocking 13 percent. The phenomenon of highly skilled graduates with advanced degrees working in low-wage, service-sector jobs has become commonplace.

These conditions are repeated in different forms on a global level. Europe, in particular, has seen a collapse in the living standards of the younger generation. Youth unemployment in the European Union stands at more than 23 percent, while in Spain it is 56.1 percent and in Greece 62.9 percent. There are 26 million young people in the “developed world” who are classified as not in employment, education or training (NEETS). Poverty and homelessness have become mass phenomena.

The political implications of these social transformations are far-reaching and are beginning to find more overt expression, and not only in relation to economic and social issues. The younger generation is “lost” not just in the sense that it has no future under capitalism, but also in the sense that it is increasingly “lost” to the ruling class and its political establishment. The forms through which the bourgeoisie seeks to maintain political control are losing their hold.

The enormous popular opposition to the war drive against Syria is one expression of this—an opposition that exists among all sections of the population, but is especially pronounced among younger and poorer Americans. The ruling class was caught off guard by the level of opposition. The lies and propaganda pumped out by the establishment media, and the “human rights” imperialism of the Democratic Party and its auxiliary organizations failed to shift popular opposition to another war based on lies.

The strongest support for National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden has come from younger adults. By wide margins, young people in the US favor more spending on social programs, higher taxes on the wealthy and greater restrictions on corporations. A higher percentage has a favorable opinion of socialism than of capitalism—an extraordinary fact given that socialism cannot be mentioned in the establishment media except as a swear word.

These sentiments can be better understood if one considers the experiences of the younger generation. Those in their early 30s today would have graduated from high school around the turn of the century, contemporaneous with the theft of the 2000 elections, the coming to power of the Bush administration, the collapse of the dot-com bubble, and the launching of the “war on terror.” Their conscious political experience has been dominated by unending economic crisis, war, the dismantling of democratic rights, political gangsterism and corruption.

The election of Obama was a key experience. Those who are now in their early 20s may have voted for the first time in 2008, backing Obama in the hope of reversing the course of the Bush administration. The same year brought the 2008 financial collapse.

The past five years have demonstrated the impossibility of changing anything within the existing political system. Inequality has grown enormously. The stock market is booming, the Forbes 400 are richer than ever, yet the conditions for youth and workers are disastrous. War continues without end, and Obama has gone far beyond Bush in rendering the Bill of Rights a dead letter.

The more far-sighted representatives of the political establishment are worried about the implications for social stability and the preservation of their system. They look for some means of broadening their base of support. Identity politics has been adopted as an official part of bourgeois politics, utilizing the services of the pseudo-left representatives of the more privileged sections of the upper-middle class.

But the ruling class has nothing to offer the broad mass of the people. Its system, capitalism, has failed.

The historical bankruptcy of capitalism does not bring about its automatic collapse. Alienation from official politics does not itself produce a socialist revolution.

It is necessary for young people to make a serious study of the experiences through which they have passed and through which the working class as a whole has passed over the course of the 20th Century. Disappointment is increasingly turning into a more focused and determined opposition. This must be transformed into a conscious political struggle.

It is necessary to develop a probing critique of the existing society and draw the necessary political conclusions from this critique—that is, the need to build the revolutionary party of the working class to fight for socialism.

Joseph Kishore
The “lost generation” and the failure of capitalism - World Socialist Web Site

 

[gambit]

You know, I, too, laugh with articles which is written in the West about Russia. And even more so - about the Soviet Union.
But there are some facts that can be concluded.
The difference between rich and poor in the United States reached a historic high since the Great Depression.
The number of poor and homeless is growing.
Middle-class incomes are reduced as the number of the middle class.

I wish I kept a roll of that waxy toilet paper I saw when I toured East Germany, before your time, as souvenir of that great Soviet "Worker's Paradise".

A couple of Russian communists pining for an era that they never lived under.

 

[M. Sarmad]

Against this downward trend comes President Obama, trying to increase the minimum hourly wage from $7.00 an hour or $280 per week (or $14,560 a year), just enough to raise a single person above poverty. If Obama is successful in hiking the minimum wage to $10.00 an hour or $400 a week, that would provide $20,000 annual income, which is below the poverty line of $24,000 for a family of fou

Obama’s minimum wage fraud
Inequality and the fight for socialism
9 December 2013
In the face of plummeting approval ratings and mounting popular opposition, the Obama administration has launched a public relations campaign to present itself as an opponent of inequality.

Speaking Wednesday in Washington, DC, Obama called income inequality the “defining challenge of our time” and declared that “over the course of the next year, and for the rest of my presidency,” the administration would “focus all our efforts” on narrowing the gap between rich and poor.

To complement its empty rhetoric, the administration has pledged its support to a proposal by congressional Democrats to raise the minimum wage from its current level of $7.25 an hour to $10.10—a measure that neither the White House or either big business party expects will actually be passed by Congress.

That such a miserable measure—which would leave the minimum wage lower in real terms than it was in 1968—is presented as a serious effort to combat inequality only underscores the fact that no section of the political establishment has any serious proposals to address mass unemployment and poverty.

Obama’s speech was an exercise in cynicism, a transparently calculated move to shore up his poll numbers and provide a cover for his right-wing policies. In typical fashion, Obama decried the growth of inequality in America as though he were an innocent bystander and had absolutely no role in the process he was criticizing—just as earlier in the year he criticized his own program of drone assassinations, only to continue the extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere.

Obama’s attempt to present himself as an opponent of inequality has been promoted by the various liberal and pseudo-left organizations that operate in the orbit of the Democratic Party, such as theNation magazine and the International Socialist Organization. The speech was coordinated with protests Thursday calling for an increase in the US minimum wage, which were organized by the Service Employees International Union and other union-affiliated organizations, along with their pseudo-left allies. While attendance was relatively small, the demonstrations were prominently featured by the media and endorsed by Obama administration officials.

That Obama felt compelled to make a gesture toward addressing social inequality reflects the fact that the immense chasm between rich and poor is ever more clearly the defining feature of social life, in the United States and internationally. While inequality is generally ignored or covered over in the media—amidst enthusiastic coverage of a soaring stock market and a supposed “recovery”—it is the dominant reality for the vast majority of the people in the US and around the world.

What can never be acknowledged, however, is that social inequality is rooted in the capitalist system, and that the immense growth of inequality over the past five years is the direct and intended result of the policies of the ruling class, implemented in the US by its chief political representative, Obama.

The events that bracketed Wednesday’s speech underscore the hypocritical character of Obama’s remarks. On Tuesday, a federal bankruptcy court judge, with the support of the White House, gave the go-ahead for the city of Detroit to proceed with the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, setting the stage for sweeping attacks on the pension benefits of workers throughout the US. Within hours of the ruling, the Illinois legislature passed a bill that slashes $160 billion in state pension benefits over 30 years.

On Friday, the White House said it would not make the extension of long-term jobless benefits a precondition for a budget deal with the Republicans. This sets the stage for the elimination of federal jobless benefits for 1.3 million people immediately after the holidays, affecting an additional 3.6 million people in the first half of 2014.

Since taking office, Obama has done everything in his power to transfer wealth from the majority of society to the super-rich. Over the past five years, social inequality has grown at an unprecedented pace. Since 2009, the median household income in the US has dropped 4.2 percent, while the top one percent of income earners has captured 95 percent of income gains.

The vast redistribution of wealth is international in scope, and the policies of the Obama administration—combining endless bank bailouts with brutal austerity—have been repeated in every major capitalist country.

The growth of social inequality has assumed the most malignant forms, to the point where the self-enrichment of a parasitic financial aristocracy stands as the greatest impediment to the satisfaction of elementary social needs. In every country, governments are dominated by corporate-financial oligarchs whose interests they slavishly serve.

As a result, the combined net worth of the world’s billionaires has doubled since 2009, and the total number of billionaires has grown from 1,360 to 2,170. The total share of economic output that goes to workers, meanwhile, has been falling throughout the world for decades.

This unprecedented concentration of wealth at the very top of society is connected to every element of policy, from the destruction of democratic rights revealed in the global spying apparatus headed by the NSA, to a foreign policy of international gangsterism that is threatening to spark another global war.

This international process is an expression of the failure of the capitalist system and its incompatibility with the basic social needs of the vast majority of the world’s people.

In contrast to the array of pseudo-left and liberal organizations that anchor their politics in race, gender and other forms of identity politics—a brand of politics that is invariably linked to the interests of more privileged sections of the middle class—the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) has based itself on an understanding of the centrality of social inequality. The divide between the rich and poor is an expression of the division of society into two great classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie.

The emphasis on social inequality is embodied in the very name of the national sections of the ICFI. When the Workers League in the US formed the Socialist Equality Party eighteen years ago, it noted that “the dominant feature” in political life was “the widening gap between a small percentage of the population that enjoys unprecedented wealth and the broad mass of the working population that lives in varying degrees of economic uncertainty and distress.”

The intervening 18 years have confirmed this evaluation. The past five years have been years of deepening economic crisis, and the response to this crisis has been determined by the social interests of a ruling class that dominates economic and political life.

The basis for a genuine struggle against social inequality is an offensive by the working class aimed at expropriating the corporate-financial elite and ending its stranglehold over society.

The defense of the most basic social needs—jobs, decent wages, pensions, education, access to culture—poses the need for the independent political mobilization of the working class against the capitalist system. The aim must be the taking of state power by the working class and the reorganization of economic life on a new basis—the satisfaction of social needs, not private profit.

Andre Damon

 

[gambit]

He is on european welfare , never having worked in his life... they pay their failures more there vs us.

Considering...

Iran's Cities a Sea of Poverty - Tehran Bureau | FRONTLINE | PBS

Between 44.5 and 55 percent of Iran's urban population lives under the poverty line, according to a new report titled "Measurement and Economic Analysis of Urban Poverty."

...Our man got it made in Europe.

 

[vostok]

I wish I kept a roll of that waxy toilet paper I saw when I toured East Germany, before your time, as souvenir of that great Soviet "Worker's Paradise".

A couple of Russian communists pining for an era that they never lived under.

Based on the fact that you resorted to the argument of "you are the fool," I conclude that what I have said above is true, but you do not want to think critically about it.
You had to go to the GDR in the 80s or 70s. They were educated, sportish, healthy, proud and merry people. And not a reach, but completely useless people for whom not important friendship, love, Motherland, duty, honor, and other things, which in the West is almost gone, and soon nothing will make a difference but money at all.

 

[gambit]

Based on the fact that you resorted to the argument of "you are the fool," I conclude that what I have said above is true, but you do not want to think critically about it.
You had to go to the GDR in the 80s or 70s. They were educated, sportish, healthy, proud and merry people. And not a reach, but completely useless people for whom not important friendship, love, Motherland, duty, honor, and other things, which in the West is almost gone, and soon nothing will make a difference but money at all.

Considering the fact that I actually lived thru an era of intense competition between capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorship, and seen the results of both, I have no problem NOT thinking critically about what you said. It is not that difficult to find images and commentaries about poverty in your Russia, then and now. But at least now, Russians have a way of getting themselves out of poverty, either by hook or by crook, whereas under Marxism, they had none at all.

And please spare us all the feeble insult about money. You Russians have no less love than Americans about it. That is beauty of capitalism, it exposes the common theme of humanity, the desire to better one's lot in life and money is the best way for that.

 

[vostok]

Considering the fact that I actually lived thru an era of intense competition between capitalism and communism, democracy and dictatorship, and seen the results of both, I have no problem NOT thinking critically about what you said. It is not that difficult to find images and commentaries about poverty in your Russia, then and now. But at least now, Russians have a way of getting themselves out of poverty, either by hook or by crook, whereas under Marxism, they had none at all.

And please spare us all the feeble insult about money. You Russians have no less love than Americans about it. That is beauty of capitalism, it exposes the common theme of humanity, the desire to better one's lot in life and money is the best way for that.

You know the difference between communism and capitalism ?
Communism tried to forcibly make everyone become an eagle . Capitalism kindly and willingly allows everyone to be a pig .
Under Communism cooler one who flies above all - the heroes of socialist labor , war heroes , stakhanovites , drummers of production. And people of heroic professions - pilots , astronauts, guards , personnel officers , firefighters and so on.
Under capitalism cooler the one who eat the most expensive meal from the most expensive trough, sleeping in the biggest house , fucking the most expensive bitch , shit on a golden toilet .
In the USSR, all the boys wanted to become heroes - to fly into space to save lives , protect the Motherland. There was a cult of honor, conscience and dignity .
Now there are nothing . Who did the most loot , kill , deceive - he became the hero of the new age.

 

[gambit]

You know the difference between communism and capitalism ?
Communism tried to forcibly make everyone become an eagle . Capitalism kindly and willingly allows everyone to be a pig .
Under Communism cooler one who flies above all - the heroes of socialist labor , war heroes , stakhanovites , drummers of production. And people of heroic professions - pilots , astronauts, guards , personnel officers , firefighters and so on.
Under capitalism cooler the one who eat the most expensive meal from the most expensive trough, sleeping in the biggest house , fucking the most expensive bitch , shit on a golden toilet .
In the USSR, all the boys wanted to become heroes - to fly into space to save lives , protect the Motherland. There was a cult of honor, conscience and dignity .
Now there are nothing . Who did the most loot , kill , deceive - he became the hero of the new age.

Good book for you, buddy...

Mig Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko: John Barron: 9780380538683: Amazon.com: Books

Guarantee to put to waste all the nonsense you just spouted.

 

[vostok]

Good book for you, buddy...

Mig Pilot: The Final Escape of Lt. Belenko: John Barron: 9780380538683: Amazon.com: Books

Guarantee to put to waste all the nonsense you just spouted.

Oh yeah. Book of traitor - it's really a great source of knowledge and not of propaganda at all.

 

[gambit]

Oh yeah. Book of traitor - it's really a great source of knowledge and not of propaganda at all.

Absolutely it was a great source of knowledge. So is he...

Viktor Suvorov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Viktor Suvorov (Russian: Ви́ктор Суво́ров, real name Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun, Russian: Влади́мир Богда́нович Резу́н, born April 20, 1947 in Barabash, Primorsky Krai) is a Soviet ArmyCold War-era Soviet military intelligence officer who defected to the United Kingdom, eventually becoming a famous writer and historian. Suvorov made his name writing books about the Soviet Army, GRU, and Spetsnaz, but it was his popular history book Icebreaker and several follow-up books about World War II that spurred considerable controversy.

I have his entire series about the GRU on my bookshelf. Fascinating stuff. Long before you were borne. Do you have any ideas how many defectors there were?

 

[vostok]

Absolutely it was a great source of knowledge. So is he...

Viktor Suvorov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have his entire series about the GRU on my bookshelf. Fascinating stuff. Long before you were borne. Do you have any ideas how many defectors there were?

study USSR by books of those who hated it and betrayed - very clever. The same as trying to fly to Moon diving into a puddle in the reflection of the Moon.

 

[gambit]

study USSR by books of those who hated it and betrayed - very clever. The same as trying to fly to Moon diving into a puddle in the reflection of the Moon.

That is eminently applicable to YOU when you said this...

Under Communism cooler one who flies above all - the heroes of socialist labor , war heroes , stakhanovites , drummers of production. And people of heroic professions - pilots , astronauts, guards , personnel officers , firefighters and so on.

In the USSR, all the boys wanted to become heroes - to fly into space to save lives , protect the Motherland. There was a cult of honor, conscience and dignity .

The defectors exposed the facade and the lies that was the USSR. Belenko exposed how a fighter pilot was paid more in terms of money and privileges than a doctor and the corruption and the incompetence inside the Soviet military. If the USSR was as idealized as you dreamed, as quoted, the USSR would not have collapsed. Ever thought of that?

You romanticized an era under an ideology that is best reserved as a piece of historical value, not worthy of resurrection. Grow up.

 

[vostok]

That is eminently applicable to YOU when you said this...

it is fair

The defectors exposed the facade and the lies that was the USSR. Belenko exposed how a fighter pilot was paid more in terms of money and privileges than a doctor and the corruption and the incompetence inside the Soviet military. If the USSR was as idealized as you dreamed, as quoted, the USSR would not have collapsed. Ever thought of that?

You romanticized an era under an ideology that is best reserved as a piece of historical value, not worthy of resurrection. Grow up.

Chaos and incompetence is common in any army of all time and all nations.
I never idealized USSR. Generally, ideal is unattainable, but it does not mean that you do not need to aspire. USSR was destroyed by the traitors who appreciated expensive food, a big house and expensive whores more then loyalty to communist ideals.
Socialism in any case more humane, more progressive system of relations between people. Even in the West Europe and in the United States understands this - modern Western capitalism has gained many features of socialism. And sooner or later, socialism will triumph in the world.