**The socialist solution to capitalism's problems**
(Reprinted from the July 18, 1998 issue of the People's
Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
For subscription information see below)
By Gus Hall
(The following is the third excerpt of a report to the
Communist Party USA National Board June 27. Gus Hall is
national chair of the CPUSA.)
Machines replacing human labor on a mass scale will bring
on the next crisis of capitalism.
Under capitalism the continually higher level of
productivity is bringing with it an escalating level of
unemployment and pauperization.
At the same time, it is making the rich richer and
producing huge profits for transnational corporations.
The new technology is replacing workers in all basic, mass
production industries. The havoc created by capitalist use
and misuse of technology and the ups and downs of the stock
market are warning signs of crises to come.
The overall wage scale keeps declining as workers are laid
off from basic mass production industries and are forced to
find jobs in unorganized, mainly low-wage, service
industries.
This has been happening for 20 years. The work done by
part-time workers and the outsourcing to small shops is
another corporate scheme to make bigger profits at the
expense of full-time union labor.
There are also developments and changes that are a direct
outcome of these processes. Corporate downsizing continues
apace: layoffs of hundreds of thousands and operations
moving to lower wage, non-union and sweatshop areas.
Meanwhile, the wages and working conditions of the
remaining work force continue to decline and speedup and
forced overtime continue to accelerate. In the last 10
years corporate profits have risen over 165 percent.
The unprecedented numbers being thrown into the ranks of
the unemployed changes the very nature of unemployment and
of the unemployed. Thus, it raises whole new questions for
the trade union movement.
Add to this the creation of a part-time work force - using
especially minority and women workers - and subcontractors
and consultants on an hourly basis. This increases the rate
of exploitation and profits because these work ers
receive neither benefits nor overtime pay.
The explosive growth of the temporary and part-time work
force is a prime example of capitalism's misuse of
technology.
In a rational system of production, under socialism,
technology would be used to shorten the workweek, while at
the same time raising the living standard of all workers.
Under capitalism, the higher level of productivity is
resulting, simultaneously, in a high level of joblessness
and poverty.
As new technology produces more advanced automated and
computerized systems, layoffs and plant closings will
vastly increase.
Capitalists and management determine whether to release or
apply new technology based strictly on what is profitable.
Capitalism distorts what kind of technology is developed in
the first place.
Technology that makes for a safer and healthier workplace
or technologies that can clean up production processes are
only implemented under tremendous pressure from labor and
consumers.
Perhaps the biggest distortion of all is the hundreds of
billions poured down the rat hole of military technology.
Not only is it wasted, dangerous and even criminal
technology, but also it acts like a giant ball and chain on
the economy and on social and human development.
In addition, public education is being attacked, privatized
and phased out. It is no longer necessary to create a
better educated and skilled work force, because the system
no longer needs more mass production workers, but instead
only a much smaller technological elite.
The underlying question these processes raise is what will
be the effect of all these negative developments.
The many-sided processes will result in ever-bigger
monopolies. They will result in the attempted destruction
of unions, on a global scale.
They will result in continuing declining wages, closing of
domestic factories. There will be more foreign factories,
more export of new technology.
These processes have already resulted in longer strikes,
more bitter class battles. And the fact is that all the new
developments and processes put together will not result in
solutions to the serious problems faced by the working
class.
They may result, however, in some workers having jobs and
the rest of the class will be worse off.
All these processes point to the need for international
working class solidarity, demands for the shorter workweek
with no cut in pay, for nationalization of monopolies and
industries, for internationalization of the trade unions,
for new strategies and tactics in the sharpening class
struggle.
It has become a life-and-death struggle. In the long run,
however, socialism is the only solution.
Under socialism a solution will be found for all the new
problems and crises of capitalism in the interests of the
working class.
Thus, the socialist solution will increasingly become more
urgent, more necessary. We have to learn to project the
socialist solution as the long-term solution to the new,
concrete problems.
Let's just take a deeper look at how socialism will solve
the biggest problem facing the working class today, new
technology.
Socialism and the scientific and technological revolution
go together.
Only socialism can make decisions to research, investigate,
discover, invent and apply without considering
profitability, but only practicability and benefit for the
people and society as a whole.
Increase in productivity is passed onto the people by way
of wage increases. When machines replace workers the hours
of work are cut, without any real cut in wages.
Under socialism, the work force of a mechanized factory or
industry would simply be retrained and relocated.
Technology enables society to assign the dirtiest, hardest
jobs to machines and robots, while humans will increasingly
do the work that requires creativity and ever-higher
education.
Technology creates much greater career opportunities and
greater leisure time for workers.
The costs involved in making such major adjustments in
machinery, technology and human labor come out of social
profits that were once privately confiscated, stolen by the
ruling class through exploitation of labor.
The scientific and technological revolution makes it
possible to project a new kind of socialist future that was
not foreseeable until now.
However, short of socialism, we need advanced demands and a
national, perhaps international conference, called by the
trade unions, which would come up with ways to prevent the
devastating effects of technology under capitalism.
For example, we need a struggle which could include federal
laws that would place restrictions on the monopolies, stop
the corporations from stealing all the fruits of
technological breakthroughs.
We need laws to guarantee commensurate price cuts and wage
increases as a result of application of new technologies;
affirmative action programs that would apply to every
application of new technology.
We need to develop a "Science and Technology Bill of Rights
for Workers and Consumers" that would eventually become
law.
It is only through a united struggle of the labor movement,
the trade unions, of all working people - including on an
international scale - that the negative effects of the
technological revolution, of all the negative processes
sweeping our economy, can be successfully resisted.
(
geocities.com/CapitolHill)