July, 2006

Let's Declare Independence from a System That's Making Us Poor

Immigrant workers and supporters demonstrating for workers’ rights in Lansing, Mich. PHOTO/DAYMONJHARTLEY.COM

July 4 -- Independence Day -- is the anniversary of the American colonies declaring their independence from Britain. Americans mark it as a day to celebrate freedom, but for the great majority of us, whatever freedom we have is tainted by poverty or the growing threat of being plunged into poverty. In reality, a new struggle for independence has been forced upon us -- a fight for independence from an immoral system that is condemning more and more of us to poverty and threatening our lives and freedom. The first step in waging that struggle is to free our minds from old ideas and find new ways to think about how we solve the problems that confront us.

Most Americans have long cherished the idea that if you work hard, you can get ahead. Certainly there were many workers who were never allowed to get ahead, no matter how hard they worked. But to the extent that it was ever possible to "make it" in America through hard work, that idea is increasingly irrelevant in an era when jobs are being replaced by technology or outsourced to countries where labor is cheaper. There is less and less work to be had, and wages for the jobs that remain are more and more too low to support a family. Pensions and health benefits are being cut or eliminated altogether. It is becoming practically impossible for millions of us to afford to heat our homes, pay the rent or the mortgage, or put gas in our cars. We cannot continue to cling to the idea that hard work will allow us to get by, when increasingly there is no work, or the work doesn't pay enough.

The impact of technology and globalization has created a new class of poor that is politically significant. Their significance lies in the fact that the system has abandoned them, condemning them to having no jobs or jobs that pay too little to live on. They are forced to fight for a new system. And because, historically speaking, the majority of workers are headed toward the same poverty, the interests of the entire working class are wrapped up with those of the new poor. In the end, the political program of the poor is to fight for a new society, where society's resources are used cooperatively to guarantee everyone's needs. The working class as a whole must take up this program as its own if it is to survive.

Technology and globalization is creating a new class of poor that is fighting for survival. PHOTO/DAYMONJHARTLEY.COM

But we cannot take up this new struggle for independence if we don't free our minds from old ideas, and from the manipulation of the corporate media. A poll done in January gave people a list of issues and asked them whether each issue should be a top priority for Congress and the President this year. At the top of the list: "Defending the U.S. from future terrorist attacks," ranked the number one priority by 80 percent of those polled. "Dealing with the problems of poor and needy people" ranked number 12 on the list of issues, with 55 percent saying it should be a top priority. While it's significant that more than half of Americans say dealing with poverty should be a priority, the fact that so many give a higher priority to dealing with terrorist attacks says many of us are still buying into the line put out by the corporations and their political parties. They want us to focus on terrorists in order to distract us from the real threat -- a system that threatens nearly all of us with the terror of poverty.

Neither of the "major" political parties has offered a real solution to the growing poverty because they cannot. They continue to present poverty as a moral failure of the poor, and as something that can be mitigated by tinkering with the system. They are the twin parties of the corporations, and they are tied to a system that is based on the buying and selling of labor power -- a system that is being rendered obsolete by advancing technology and globalization.

The only way out for the working class is to look at politics from the perspective of the poor, who are forced to fight for a new society. But if the working class continues to regard poverty as a moral failure of the poor, rather than as a failure of the system, it will not be able to rally around the poor. That is why our new struggle for independence must start with a declaration of independence from the current system and the ideas that support it.