March, 2007

Editorial: We can end homelessness, once and for all

CARTOON/Mike Thompson, Copley News Service

The growing violence against and repression of the homeless, and their heroic and determined resistance in various places across the country in response, are bringing the issue of homelessness to the fore. Why has homelessness grown in our country over the last 30 years, and how do we end it? Because it can be ended, once and for all.

People point to the rise of poverty as a chief cause of homelessness. This is certainly true, but what is causing the rise in poverty? Many people point to falling wages, the decline in manufacturing jobs and the growth of low-paying service jobs, the reductions in public assistance, the growth of part-time and temporary work, the exportation of jobs to low-wage countries through globalization, etc. This is all true, but what is underneath all this?

The corporations we work for are forever trying to out-produce their competition, to get things produced faster and more efficiently. The computer and the robot have given business the ultimate weapon in the war of production. These tools don't simply supplement or complement human labor, they replace it. Ask the hundreds of thousands of telephone operators who were replaced by computerized telephone switching systems, or the hundreds of thousands of bank tellers replaced by ATMs, or the hundreds of thousands of auto workers replaced by robots on the assembly line. The list goes on and on, and it won't stop. Every business is compelled to automate to match its competition, or go under.

The result is permanent unemployment for millions, and wages too low to live on for millions more as workers are forced to compete with robots and a globalized work force for jobs. The ironic result? We can produce mountains of everything with automated production, from autos to houses, but fewer and fewer people can afford to buy anything. Homelessness is the simply the worst manifestation of this process.

We have everything we need to solve the problems of poverty and homelessness. There is plenty of housing, plenty of food, plenty of clothing, etc., and we can all see it. This is not a question of shortages, it's a question of who owns and controls the economy and who has the political power to decide what will happen.

As long as a handful of big privately owned corporations control the economy and govern our country, they will continue to automate production, eliminate jobs and lower wages, and poverty and homelessness will continue to grow. This is the way of the market economy. But the vast productive power of this economy could end poverty and homelessness tomorrow, if only the people controlled it. It's simply a question of the people gaining the political power to direct society's resources so we can end the problem. A new society is not only possible, but necessary.

To build that society, we first have to recognize that the corporate rulers of our country are our enemies, not our friends, and that this tiny wealthy minority has no right to control society's resources at the expense of the majority. We have a right to be free of poverty and homelessness, and we must organize and educate ourselves for the struggle that lies ahead. The first step is to demand that the government act now to provide housing for all who need it.