Today, the gap between the richest one percent and the bottom 99 percent of the US population has grown to a record high. The economic top one percent of the population now owns 70 percent of all financial assets. The new digitalized economy is ripping through society with accelerated speed. And the capitalist class is guiding the process, extracting untold wealth out of the destruction they are creating. The old industrial economy is being replaced by the new electronic economy and only because the corporations – and not the people – control this new digitalized productive power, society as we know it is being destroyed in it wake.
The jobs from the past industrial era, which continue to be eliminated, are gone forever. Once replaced by digitalized production, the mechanical forms of industrial organization are gone, just as the jobs of the local telephone operator, milkman, blacksmith, plowman and muleskinner were eliminated and replaced during centuries of human progress before.
According to the most recent Gallup poll, real unemployment in the US is now 19.9 percent – 30 million people – when those with no job are counted along with those seeking full-time work who can only find work at low-paying part-time and temporary jobs. Beginning in the 1970's, the Department of Labor simply stopped counting these underemployed workers in the "official" unemployment totals.
The real wages of the constantly diminishing number of employed workers continue to fall and full-time jobs continue to be eliminated on a mass scale. New digital technology is rapidly replacing workers around the globe.
These human-made advancements are not the underlying and fundamental cause of the pain and suffering of hundreds of millions of workers worldwide. Human progress is a magnificent thing to behold. The abundance produced by this advanced technology needs to be distributed on the basis of need. The capitalist economy – the private ownership of all social production – is the problem. It stands as the sole obstacle in advancing the interests of human life and progress, in this new age of electronic production.
This current crisis is not just another cyclical economic crisis of capitalist overproduction. This is the beginning stage of a general economic crisis – a systemic crisis of capitalism itself. Robots do not consume, and unemployed workers do not consume either, in a society whose economy requires money to exchange (buy and sell) in the marketplace.
In just two years, millions of people in the US have lost their jobs and homes. Millions more have fallen into poverty. A majority of those who put money away for retirement or who saved for their children's education lost virtually everything. Globally, tens of millions lost their jobs – 20 million in China alone – and tens of millions more fell into poverty.
The "safety net" is fraying and the social fabric of US society is being torn apart. The human pain, the human suffering and the human torment is real. The American people are confused and angry. Populist hatred, racial prejudices and immigrant bashing are on the rise. Meanwhile, the corporations continue enriching themselves at our expense, as they loot the public treasury of the revenue needed to increase spending on human needs.
Either the future will belong to us or it will belong to the corporations. If we don't take over the corporations to construct society to guarantee human needs are met, be certain the corporations will take over us. Be further certain they will construct a society that has no regard for human needs. To take a step toward society taking over the corporations, we should start by nationalizing certain industries, such as the banks, in the interest of the people. Then we can use the resources of those industries to begin guaranteeing the basic needs of the people are met.
Those
of us who seek fundamental social change are engaged in a
battle to win the hearts and minds of the people. This can't be done
without a revolutionary press. For 40 years, the People's Tribune
has brought our readers the stories of those who are struggling to
move forward in a world where corporate power is threatening to crush
them. Along with those stories, we try to offer some strategic
perspective to help put the struggle in context and point the way
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People's Tribune Editorial Board
People's Tribune 'crucial' says contributor:
Never has it been more crucial to strengthen and expand the circulation of the People's Tribune. Leadership is emerging among the people who are "poor in things and rich in spirit"- and they need the news and analysis from the nation, from all the communities which are on the front lines struggling against harsh and brutal economic conditions.
We can do this. $5 a month from 200 people, $10 a month from a hundred people, $20 dollars a month from fifty people, $50 a month from twenty people - and we would have a thousand more dollars per month. The PT points the direction - it orients our leaders with a class perspective we just can't find anywhere else.
-Cathleen Williams Sacramento
People's Tribune 'crucial' says contributor:
Never has it been more crucial to strengthen and expand the circulation of the People's Tribune. Leadership is emerging among the people who are "poor in things and rich in spirit"- and they need the news and analysis from the nation, from all the communities which are on the front lines struggling against harsh and brutal economic conditions.
We can do this. $5 a month from 200 people, $10 a month from a hundred people, $20 dollars a month from fifty people, $50 a month from twenty people - and we would have a thousand more dollars per month. The PT points the direction - it orients our leaders with a class perspective we just can't find anywhere else.
-Cathleen Williams Sacramento
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continue publishing in our current form. For 40 years, the People's
Tribune has brought our readers the stories of those who are struggling
to move forward in a world where corporate power is threatening to
crush them. Along with those stories, we try to offer some strategic
perspective to help put the struggle in context and point the way
toward victory. The People's Tribune gets no grants and has an
all-volunteer staff. We rely completely on subscriptions and donations
from our readers. We do this so that we can continue speaking the truth.Please donate whatever you can.
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Tribune Editorial Board
