The New York Times not very long ago described the homeless who are living in their cars, the so-called "mobile homeless," many of whom went from living in comfortable homes in "middle class" neighborhoods to living in their cars on the streets of those same neighborhoods.
And now, the mortgage and credit crisis will swell the ranks of the homeless even further, as nearly 2 million households are expected to lose their homes to foreclosures over the next two years.
No one's job is safe. Early on in this process, technology replaced the unskilled and semi-skilled workers. Today, the jobs of skilled trades people and white-collar workers are being eliminated as technology becomes more sophisticated. Any of us could be plunged into the ranks of the dispossessed at any time. Most of us are just a few paychecks away from being homeless. Just ask the formerly well-paid workers who are now homeless; their ranks include accountants, auto workers, aerospace workers and software engineers.
A typical process is this: you get laid off, and you can't find work or you can only find low-paying work. You can no longer pay the rent or the mortgage, so you end up living in your car. And when you can't keep the car running any longer, it's into the shelters or the streets.
The most destitute among us are not a category of people, and they are not the poor of the past. They are part of a new class of dispossessed being produced by the combination of capitalism, technology that is replacing labor in the workplace, and globalization. In this privately owned economy, the ever-expanding use of computers and robots doesn't mean more leisure time--it means jobs are wiped out and people are impoverished, plunged into a state of permanent unemployment or underemployment. This new class of dispossessed is essentially outside of the economy, existing by the skin of its teeth on the fringes of society. Homelessness is simply the most virulent expression of their poverty.
Members of this developing new class of the impoverished are being drawn from nearly every level of society. Almost all of us are standing somewhere along a slippery slope that leads down to destitution.
The point is, we cannot continue to live in the old way, for both moral and practical reasons. The old society, based on a market economy, is being destroyed as technology wipes out the market. You can't sell things to people who don't have any money. Out of both moral and practical necessity, we are going to have to build a new society, where the necessities of life are distributed according to need. It's either this or starve.
Where will the political energy come from to demand and fight for that new society? It will come from the new class of dispossessed, who will soon become the majority. They will not settle for less than a new society because they cannot. To reconstruct society on a new foundation is their true political program, whether they themselves realize it yet or not. And everyone who must sell their labor power to live has a moral and practical stake in the success of this program.
