"Free Market" devastates New Orleans and auto industry.

international | anti-capitalism | opinion/analysis Saturday January 21, 2006 17:49 by Richard Mellor - Labors Militant Voice aactivist at igc dot org

Capitalism's assault on New Orleans and the Auto Industry.

The "Free Market": The Greatest Terror Of All

By Richard Mellor
Retired member, AFSCME Local 444
Oakland CA
Jaqcquelyn Brechtel Clarkson, a New Orleans city council member is a big fan of the "free market". In the controversy over the re-building of New
Orleans she makes her position very clear, "There's nothing better than
free enterprise and the free market to decide how this city is rebuilt." (1)
Ms Clarkson leaves out one important lesson that should be absorbed by all
working people; it was free enterprise and the free market that destroyed
New Orleans. This omission is no accident; after all, Ms Clarkson is a
political representative of the capitalist class, of big
business. Sitting on the board of the Louisiana Realtors she has a
vested interest in building anywhere, anytime. And the aftermath of
Katrina has opened up some real opportunities for the real estate
business. Politicians like Ms Clarkson, Bill Clinton or George W Bush
will always tell us they enter politics to serve the "American
people." They simply fail to tell us which American people.

The destruction of New Orleans was not a natural disaster but a social
one. Leaving aside the fact that the increased frequency and strength of
hurricanes is widely believed to be caused by global warming, itself a
free market product, the inability of the levees to withstand such a force
as Katrina was well documented. Monies necessary for strengthening the
levees were used for the war in Iraq where privatization of huge sectors
of the Iraqi infrastructure have been accomplished by the bomb and
thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died as a result.

Ms Clarkson also represents New Orleans District C which includes the
French Quarter, a commercial center and therefore more important than
working class communities. The communities where the low- waged who
worked in the French Quarter live, Ms Clarkson wants to rebuild according
to the laws of the market that caused the destruction in the first
place. Naturally, being in the real estate business and on the board of
the Louisiana Realtors is just a lucky break for this businesswoman. Her
political decisions have nothing to do with her business interests she
would have us believe. But for the big landlords, bankers, speculators
and other moneymakers, Katrina has been a gift from above.

A few hours plane ride from New Orleans, in Detroit Michigan, the free
market is wreaking havoc on another sector of American workers. The auto
bosses have gone after their employees with a vengeance. Following on the
heels of the airline bankruptcies, Delphi Corporation, the auto parts
maker spun off from GM in 1999 has declared bankruptcy in order to renege
on its contractual obligations regarding employee pensions. This is
despite the fact that Delphi is not broke. The employers are using the
bankruptcy courts to get around contract obligations with unions. In
actuality, the employers, their politicians and the courts that serve
their interests are joining together in a more open fashion in order to
eliminate all the gains made during the rise of the CIO in the thirties
and the civil rights movement that followed. Their efforts are made even
easier by the capitulation of the heads of the AFL-CIO to this
process. In auto, the UAW leadership has agreed to concessions in wages
and retirement benefits and has done nothing to prevent job losses.

Labor leaders, the so-called labor-friendly politicians in the Democratic
Party, and the academics who give them intellectual justification for
their failed policies argue that the climate is not favorable for workers
to make demands on the employers. But this is absurd. According to the
Financial Times, profit margins and profits are at a 30 and 50 year high
respectively. (2) A recent study published by Linda Bilmes of Harvard and
Joeseph Stglitz of Columbia estimates that the Iraq war, under a moderate
scenario, will cost at least $1.1 trillion. Martin Wolf of the Financial
Times comments, "to put this in context, the minimum budgetary cost is 10
times the world's net annual official development assistance to all
developing countries." The world is awash with cash.

The crisis in New Orleans is a free market crisis, a crisis of
capitalism. The attacks on workers from Detroit to Bombay are a product of the system not the results of greed in the abstract, bad management
practices or corrupt CEO's and politicians. A political party does not
exist in a vacuum; it represents class interests. The politicians in the
Democratic and Republican parties are simply representing their class
interests when they carry out policies that devastate workers, our
communities and our well-being. The fact that they're corrupt is
secondary but still costly for working people.

The recent scandal involving the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is a
prime example of the rottenness of the present system and its political
representatives. Robert Livingston, a former Republican congressman
turned lobbyist, claimed on CNN, that "Abramoff was an
aberration." This is the news for our ears. But in the Wall Street
Journal, the paper that capitalism writes for itself rather than mass
consumption, John Shadegg an Arizona Republican writes: "Powerful members
of Congress are able to insert provisions giving away millions -- even
tens of millions -- of dollars in the dead of night. The recent scandals
involving Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff have highlighted the problem,
but this is not just a case of a few bad apples." (4) They have to tell
the truth to each other to a certain extent, as their system is not
without rules. Livingston, like most retired politicians likes the
lucrative lobbying business. According to a new study by LobbyingInfo.org,
43 percent of Congressional members who have left office since 1998 have
registered to lobby. No wonder Livingston paints Abramoff as an
aberration in the mass media; thieves don't like their profession maligned.

The two examples above, New Orleans and auto, are a clear example of the
failure of the capitalist system where the major forces of production are
in private hands. When we say that working people can run society panic
sets in. "This is communism" the capitalists will cry", and the former
dictatorship in the Soviet Union will be re-borne in the press. The less
hostile will say we are only dreaming, that workers can never run society
(we can just fight and die for it), "it's a good idea but", the "but"
meaning human nature is inherently greedy and exploitive. And society
cannot function without the Carl Icahn's and Kirk Kerkorian's of this
world owning the factories, the airlines, the mines and deciding with
their friends what should be produced, when and how; what should be built
and where.
But despite it's degeneration into a totalitarian dictatorship, the
revolution in Russia showed that workers can run society just like Wilbur
and Orville Wright's experiment with flight proved that we could make
machines that fly; they didn't stop the experiment because the model
crashed. The Seattle general strike of 1919 showed too that working
people can actually administrate society through workers' councils or
committees rather than just produce society's products by our labor while
the direction of work and the administration of the products we create is
left in the hands of the bankers and their politicians. What we produce
through our labor should be a social product, produced for human need not
profit for a few. The social product need not be the property of Steve
Miller, the hatchet man for Delphi or his colleagues.

Ideas have a class base. In feudal times the dominant ideology was that
the King was King by "Divine Right." His position in society was given to
him by God. It's pretty clear who benefits from this viewpoint; certainly
not the peasant in the fields. It's hard to overthrow a despot who one
believes is a despot by the grace of God, if you believe in God that
is. Cromwell, the English farmer decided to test this philosophy: cut off
the King's head and see what happens. A new day was born.

It's time for a new day.


(1) Financial Times 1-12-06
(2) Financial Times 1-9-06
(3) Financial Times 1-11-06
(4) Wall Street Journal 1-18-06

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