By Richard Mellor in California
It is only natural that the mass media champions capitalism and the private sector. It’s not that it is fake news, but it has a class bias; it is an agency of class rule. The courts, the universities, the means of producing the needs of a modern society, are all owned by the capitalist class and function to advance the interests of that class.
The US capitalist class is the most powerful on the planet and the US working class is in the belly of this beast. I often say that the first victims of US capitalism are the millions of us within its national borders. In many ways, due to the imposing power of its mass media and global influence, the US population is kept isolated and apart from the rest of the world. There can be huge social events in the rest of the world that go virtually uncovered here in the mass media. Meanwhile, we are seeing in this election an unprecedented political crisis as both parties of US capitalism implode.
Home to marginalized sections
The Democratic Party has long been considered the party of working people and the poor. The heads of organized labour have traditionally supported it, giving billions of dollars over the decades, as well as providing material support in the form of canvassers, precinct walkers, and so on. With no other viable choices, it has been home to various marginalized sections of society: environmentalists, racial minorities, victims of sex and gender oppression and so on. In the present period, this 2020 election and the rise of Trump has revealed just how worthless this party is, when it comes to the interests of workers and the poor.
I have always thought that surely it is partly a stroke of luck that this party was in power during the two greatest upsurges of the US working class of the 20th century: the rise of the CIO in the 1930s and the Civil Rights movement or Black Revolt of the 50s and 60s. These two major social upheavals forced the US capitalist class to make some concessions, through one of its two political parties and the Democratic Party’s role has been to play the good cop in the good cop-bad cop political theatre. I am sure there are those who may or may not agree with me on this.
Efforts to deny nomination to Sanders
But great events lay bare the real nature of class society and we are seeing this with regards to the Democratic Party ‘unity’ that is in full force in an effort to deny Bernie Sanders, essentially a social democrat, the party’s choice for nominee in the presidential election in November.
It appears it is not Donald Trump that is the major obstacle to the Sanders campaign, but the power in the Democratic Party. The decades-long tolerance of a liberal non-threatening wing of mostly middle-class lefties has reached its limits in the present period, with the emergence of the Democratic Socialists of America, once a minor element, that has grown from about 6000 members to around 65,000. Sanders has been around a long time and has tapped into the increasing mood for change in US society, in response to decades of declining living standards and working conditions.
The Democratic Party is in a state of real crisis. We must not lose sight of the fact that it is a capitalist party and a political party can only function for so long under pressure from opposing class forces, before they part company and the party splits. The power in this party is willing to take a chance with Joe Biden, rather than risk strengthening Sanders’ forces and the very basic social democratic demands that has popularized his campaign. Biden, in my opinion, will have a hard time defeating Trump, and while I am not convinced Sanders can, I think his chances are stronger.
Bankruptcy of Democrats as a vehicle for the working class
The complete bankruptcy of the Democratic Party as a vehicle for the working class is evident in this process. It is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. If the Party power decides to deny Sanders the nomination at the Convention in July, through the super-delegates and backroom deals, it will intensify the disgust most Americans have with the corrupt and money-based US political system. Let’s not forget that close to 100 million eligible voters chose ‘none of the above’ in 2016.
If Sanders gets the nomination, another crisis looms, in that he will not be able to accomplish much. He may get some things passed through Executive Order and so on, but his platform will not gain much traction. I’m open to other views, but it seems to me that the Democratic Party that was unable to get witnesses admitted to an impeachment trial is hardly likely to get much of Sanders’ platform through the swamp. And in this instance, there will be many Democrats that will join Republicans in blocking Sanders’ program.
Fear of anger below the surface
The fear of the US working class and of the anger that exists beneath the surface of society breaking out in to the open, is so great that any decision the Democratic Party leadership makes will be made with that fear hanging over them.
Sanders betrayed his constituents by supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 and with the support of the leadership of DSA is once again leading many idealistic, more often than not, middle class youth in to the Democratic Party, a right wing capitalist party that cannot be reformed and that is not the vehicle through which real social change can come.
So the revival of the corporate candidate, Joe Biden, has begun with a successful Super Tuesday. “Biden Sweeps the South” many a headline proclaims. Wall Street is feeling a little better now, if they can forget the coronavirus for a moment. This euphoria won’t last long, as the Convention in July will not be a smooth one and no matter who is in the White House come 2020, the global capitalist crisis will have only worsened.
Disaster programme to pay for hospitals and doctors
The economic crisis facing the US is being made worse by the coronavirus and it will be US workers and the middle class that will pay. Bond and pension liabilities owed by 1000 US urban centres rose 25% to $500 billion in 2018, according to a Wall Street Journal report. “Roughly 50 million Americans live in cities that are devoting at least a fifth of annual spending to debt,” the same report says, and the situation is even worse in rural areas.
In addition, the Trump administration is considering using a government disaster program to pay hospitals and doctors for caring for the uninsured who are infected with the coronavirus. There are 27 million Americans without medical insurance. “We are going to look at the uninsured because they have a big problem.”, the US President announced this week. They do indeed, and it’s the private health care system and the market. One estimate claimed that a pandemic akin to the 1918 flu would cost hospitals $3.9 billion. Michael Bloomberg has just spent half a billion in three months. That’s probably the Trump tax break he got. When will Americans accept that accumulated capital is not earned money? It is not Michael Bloomberg’s to waste.
Public sector pays for crisis every time
So the private sector is very efficient, except in emergencies, we are supposed to believe and then the state can step in. Even that is a lie. But day in-day out, market driven social catastrophes are handled through the intervention of the public sector or ‘socialistic’ measures. Capitalism was dragged from the abyss by the US taxpayer in 2007. In the mid 1990s the taxpayer bailed out the savings and loan Industry. The level and intensity of natural disasters is not natural at all, it is the result of climate change and the effects of industrial production and capitalism on a world scale.
Rather than the taxpayer coughing up the costs for the 27 million uninsured who might be infected by the coronavirus virus, the health industry must be taken in to public ownership and run on the basis of need not profits, and that includes the pharmaceutical companies. Why is whether we get to see a doctor or not dependent on some insurance CEO and his company’s balance sheet? The same with hospital care. Think of how much the Afghanistan and Iraq wars cost the taxpayer in dollars. And in Afghanistan, the US is attempting to exit a very costly venture that has ended in defeat with very little, if anything to show for it. We may never know the environmental and human costs for the Afghan people. It is also important to remember that up until 1999, every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government.
It’s hard to say what will happen, given the volatile period we find ourselves in. Maybe Trump will win again, although what happens to the economy has a lot to do with that. One thing certain is that no matter who it is, Biden, Sanders or Trump, it will be the working class that is expected to pay for a crisis that is not of our own making.
Independent workers’ party
The heads of organized labour are silent as usual, and the force that has the resources to offer a real political alternative in the form of an independent workers’ party has not yet entered the scene in a major way. But this seemingly monolithic bureaucracy, the ‘dogs that never bark’, will not survive the storms that lie ahead.
It is not unlikely that the mass movement against this capitalist offensive, will arrive sooner rather than later and the changes, as they usually do, will be brought about through movements in the streets, communities and workplaces of this country, the mass direct action that has been the cause of all social change. While it doesn’t seem likely the Democratic Party will split at this point, it seems an inevitable development in the not too distant future.
Now that climate change and environmental catastrophe is clearly a key issue, the need for drastic action becomes more apparent. I wish it were smoother but it doesn’t look like it. As Marx pointed out, we have free will alright; but we do not get to choose the circumstances under which we exercise it.
March 5, 2020
From the US socialist website, Facts for Working People. The original can be found here.
