Susan's blog

Whatever Happened to Class Solidarity?

by Susan Rosenthal

The volume of words flying between supporters of CNA and SEIU would sink a ship. What have we learned?

First, both unions have legitimate grievances. The line of right and wrong does not divide neatly between the two sides.

Second, the issues being debated are critical and must be resolved if workers are to build strong unions.

Third, the vital matter of union democracy cannot be resolved in a battle between CNA and SEIU. The resulting polarization has undermined democratic forces in both unions who are accused of being "on the other side."

What to do?

Over the past 60 years, the American labor movement has not only lost ground economically, it has forgotten the principles of class solidarity that made it strong. These are:

Union members must control their organizations. That means no union or union leader should be supported uncritically.

Class is more important than where you work, what job you do or what union you’re in.

Defending workers’ rights requires the broadest possible class unity.

To resolve the issues and move forward, we must re-frame this debate in class terms that will benefit workers in all unions (see my previous post).

The Shocking Disaster of Capitalism

by Susan Rosenthal

Book Review: Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Metropolitan Books, September 18, 2007, 576 pages, $28 (US)

It’s often been said that we are the majority, and they can’t put us all in jail. Naomi Klein proves otherwise. It’s true, they can’t put us all in jail, but they don’t need to. Klein is the anti-globalization author of No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. In her bold new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, she explains how "radical capitalists" use shock treatment to impose anti-human policies on unwilling populations.

Under normal conditions, most people reject plans to raise profits by waging wars, depressing living standards, deepening inequality and decimating civil rights. Nor do they choose to abolish government regulations, minimize corporate taxes, privatize government functions and eliminate social services. Yet that is what the "free market" demands. In essence, free people don’t choose wars and free markets, they choose peace and government services, like universal health care.

Because democracy is the enemy of the free market, free-market fundamentalists must use force to get their way. "Countries are shocked — by wars, terror attacks, coups d’état and natural disasters." Then, "they are shocked again — by corporations and politicians who exploit the fear and disorientation of this first shock to push through economic shock therapy." A third shock is delivered "by police, soldiers and prison interrogators" against those who resist. A succession of "aftershocks" provide more opportunities for profit.

While populations are reeling and disoriented, their economies are pillaged in a capitalist feeding frenzy. Public wealth is handed to the private sector, and private debt is transferred to the public sector. A few become fabulously wealthy, and the majority are impoverished. Whether this happens quickly, as it did in Chile 30 years ago, or more gradually, as in America today, Klein describes the outcome as "extraordinarily violent armed robbery." By the time the population recovers its bearings, the economy has been looted and the theft sanctioned by law.

This may sound way over the top, but it isn’t science fiction. Klein’s research is meticulous, and she provides many examples to make her case: Latin America, South Africa, Poland, Russia, Asia and the Middle East.

In Iraq, the U.S. invasion (Shock and Awe) was followed by economic shock. American bureaucrats rewrote Iraq’s laws to permit 100 percent foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses and to let foreign companies take all their profits out of the country, tax free. All 200 of Iraq’s state companies were offered for sale, and the central bank was prohibited from financing state-owned businesses. A continuing military occupation, mass incarceration and torture force compliance with these policies.

In the United States, the shock of September 11 was used to privatize sections of the state that were previously off-limits, including disaster response, national security and the military. As Klein puts it, "For decades, the market had been feeding off the appendages of the state; now it would devour the core." She describes the result as a "hollow government" that subcontracts state functions to the private sector and, in the process, transfers public funds into private coffers. "In 2003, the Bush administration spent $327 billion on contracts to private companies — nearly 40 cents of every discretionary dollar." This process has been accompanied by mass detentions, secret prisons, extensive spying, elimination of due process, and torture.

Klein insists that the use of torture is not an aberration but a necessary display of the state’s determination to crush all opposition. Neither individual pain nor mass misery can be allowed to block the road to power and profit. Torture is "a foolproof indication" that "a regime is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections."

The impact of The Shock Doctrine cannot be captured in a short review. You must read it to appreciate the full significance of what Klein has uncovered. As an added bonus, it reads like a fast-moving detective story, unmasking the individuals and forces that are pushing our world into barbarism. Until the last few chapters, I couldn’t put it down.

The chicken and the egg

Despite her keen observations, Klein confuses the chicken of power with the egg of profit. She states, "I believe that the goal of the Iraq war was to bomb into being a new free trade zone." This is mistaken.

Washington invaded Iraq to obtain a military base in a strategically important region of the Middle East. From this position, America can secure its global dominance by controlling a large portion of the world oil supply. Of course, enormous profits are being made in the process. But power comes first.

American companies could never claim Iraqi oil without the U.S. military. As Thomas Friedman observed, "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15, and the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon valley’s technology is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps."

Confusion concerning the relation between power and profit leads Klein to view the rise of disaster capitalism as something new. In fact, it is the logical outcome of a system that has always sought profit at any price.

The British Empire was built on savage colonialism. America grew wealthy off the labor of African slaves. The displacement of poor people after disasters like Katrina and the Asian tsunami is an extension of the displacement of aboriginals and everyone else who has ever stood in the way of profit. What’s new is the astonishing efficiency with which human lives and the environment are being destroyed.

However, Klein doesn’t hate capitalism. Her target is the ruthless free-market doctrine preached by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. Klein advocates a mixed capitalist economy, with "a free market in consumer products" and generous social services provided by a class-neutral state that serves everyone’s needs. How reasonable! Yet Klein provides more than 500 pages of evidence that the capitalist system is fundamentally unreasonable.

Klein compares capitalism to a drug addict, where the drug is profit. By definition, addiction is not a reasonable behavior. As Bob Dylan sang in Highway 61 Revisited, a capitalist will sell tickets to World War III if he could profit by doing so.

Moreover, Klein’s "third way," which she describes as a mix of capitalism and socialism, is an historical oddity that developed as a temporary response to social crisis. Examples include the American New Deal in response to the Great Depression and the post-war European welfare states. Once the threat of revolution is removed, the drive for profit resumes. The New Deal has been dismantled, and European states are privatizing their economies. Vulture capitalists are devouring Britain’s welfare state, and Canada continues to privatize social services, despite annual government budget surpluses.

Klein takes the classic liberal position of compromise, the belief that capitalism can be made to suit everyone’s needs. As she puts it, "I am not saying that all forms of market capitalism are inherently violent. It is imminently possible to have a market-based economy that requires no such brutality." The experience of ordinary people says otherwise.

Workers’ lives are brutalized every day by systemic disrespect, lack of control, overwork and unemployment, financial stress and fear for the future. Capitalism needs profit, profit requires worker exploitation, and exploitation is inherently violent. As Klein herself states,

"An economic system that requires constant growth, while bucking almost all serious attempts at environmental regulation, generates a steady stream of disasters all on its own, whether military, ecological or financial. The appetite for easy, short-term profits offered by purely speculative investment has turned the stock, currency and real estate markets into crisis-creation machines, as the Asian financial crisis, the Mexican peso crisis and the dotcom collapse all demonstrate."

Klein shows us that capitalism is the enemy of democracy, so that any form of collectivism is seen as a threat to the system. That’s why President Bush rejected government-funded health care for low-income children. For business to triumph, everything that defines us as human must be swept away.

Three forces that CAN win

Klein tries to end this book on an optimistic note. She describes how people bravely reconstruct their lives after the shocks wear off. However, the resilience of those who rebuild, while immensely admirable, cannot counter the power of capitalism to keep on destroying. Klein also mentions the Bolivarian revolutions in Latin America and the worker cooperatives that she and her husband document in their must-see film, The Take. Oddly, Klein does not call for activists to rebuild the vibrant anti-globalization movement that was knocked off its feet after 9/11.

In the opening chapters, Klein names the forces that can defeat capitalism. In every nation they have targeted, free-market capitalists have identified three threats to their privatization agenda: organized workers (who could take the economy away from them); marxists (who encourage workers to do just that); and the principle of solidarity (which is incompatible with free-market individualism).

While Klein is passionate about solidarity, she is not a marxist. She doesn’t want to replace capitalism, she wants only to tame it. So she sidesteps the potential of the working class to liberate us from the disaster that is capitalism. And in the process, she reinforces the fundemental mistake of liberalism.

Naomi Wolf (no relation to Naomi Klein) co-founded the American Freedom Campaign, whose goal is "to reverse the abuse of executive power and restore our system of checks and balances." The Campaign has gathered millions of signatures on a petition to defend the Constitution.

Wolf should read Klein's book. The chilling description of Chile’s military coup proves that a Constitution presents no barrier to determined profit-seekers. Only the working class could have stopped that horror. But while workers begged for arms to defend their elected government, Chile’s president placed his faith in the Constitution. It was a disastrous and fatal mistake.

Real democracy and real freedom mean the power to control the economy. Capitalism will never choose to give that up, no matter how many people sign a petition.

Despite its weaknesses, The Shock Doctrine is essential reading for a new generation of activists. Few books help us to understand the world. Even fewer do this in an accessible form.

Klein connects the dots to reveal the deepening conflict between what most people want and where capitalism is taking us. She tells us that the world is descending into barbarism, not because of human nature, not because people don’t care, not because we lost any argument, but because we have not yet organized in sufficient numbers to prevent it.

The good news is that human beings not only suffer, we also rebel, and we can learn to rebel more effectively. Klein has shown us the three forces that can defeat capitalism: the organized working class, the politics of marxism and the principles of solidarity. Her final message is absolutely right. It’s time to organize.

Read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

Who Are We?

by Susan Rosenthal

After exposing the horrors of the American medical system, Michael Moore concludes his documentary, SiCKO, by asking, "Who are we, that we allow such suffering?" When Moore appeared on Oprah’s talk show, she turned to the television audience and repeated the question.

Naomi Klein poses the same question. Her book, The Shock Doctrine, documents how the people in power engineer catastrophes and exploit natural disasters to profit a few. How awful! Who are we, that we tolerate such injustice?

Capitalists and their supporters reply, "Human nature is brutal and cannot change." They want to keep the door shut on any discussion of who we are and the kind of society we could have. As far as they are concerned, we are their creatures and should remain so. We labor to enrich them. We suffer and die to build their empires. That’s who they want us to be.

Who decides who we are? Moore and Klein and a growing number of activists are saying, "We decide who we are." And so the revolution begins.

Who do we want to be?

People value kindness more than any other characteristic. Compassion in thought, word and deed is universally appreciated regardless of nationality, culture or religion. By acknowledging kindness as the highest human value, we define who we are and the type of world that we want.

We want to live in a compassionate and sharing world, a giving-and-forgiving world, a help-each-other-out world, an all-for-one-and-one-for-all world, democratically managed by all of us, for all of us.

A truly democratic society can remake itself in any way it chooses. As Klein points out, the idea that people should not have the power to decide how the economy functions "is and remains the single most anti-democratic idea of our time."

The capitalists don’t want a kind world or a democratic world. There would be no profit in it. They want more and bigger weapons, more surveillance, more prisons and more repression to keep their profits flowing and protect their power to shape society for their exclusive benefit.

However, when millions of ordinary people begin to ask, "Who are we?" the days of the oppressors are numbered.

We are the majority, and we can build a fair and just world. We lack confidence in ourselves and each other, but that can change. Together, we can release ourselves and our oppressors from this heartless hell of chasing profit. There can be no act of compassion greater than that.

For more, read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

America in Crisis, Part II: The Liberal Challenge and the Prospects for Socialism

by Susan Rosenthal

Part I (September 17) discussed the deepening conflict between the rulers and the ruled and the disagreements within the elite on how to address the nation's problems. Part II (below) compares liberal efforts to preserve the system with socialist efforts to replace it.

Containing discontent

The capitalist class is a tiny minority that needs majority consent to rule. That consent could be lost if social problems are allowed to deepen. Arguing that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, liberals align with social discontent in order to contain it.

When the President defended insurance industry profits over the needs of sick children, the New York Times shared the nation’s outrage. In "An Immoral Philosophy" (August 1, 2007), Paul Krugman writes,

"What kind of philosophy says that it's O.K. to subsidize insurance companies, but not to provide health care to children?...9 in 10 Americans – including 83 percent of self-identified Republicans – support an expansion of the children's health insurance program...There is, it seems, more basic decency in the hearts of Americans than is dreamt of in Mr. Bush's philosophy."

The liberal media are running to get ahead of a growing number of dissidents, like Naomi Klein and Michael Moore, who are fueling discontent. Klein’s best-selling book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, has joined Moore’s documentary film, SiCKO, to punch holes in the lies that prop up the system. When Oprah and Moore agree on national television that America needs some form of socialized medicine, the wind is definitely shifting.

Suddenly, "socialism" is not such a dirty word. In "A Socialist Plot" (August 27, 2007), Krugman writes, "The truth is that there’s no difference in principle between saying that every American child is entitled to an education and saying that every American child is entitled to adequate health care."

Liberals must convince the capitalist class that a lesser-evil-capitalism, even when it calls itself socialism, is preferable to the threat of real socialism. However, conservatives argue that granting reforms will be the start of a slippery slope. If Americans think they have a right to health care, what else will they think they deserve?

Conservatives remember the 1960s, when Americans gained the confidence to demand racial equality, women’s liberation, aboriginal rights, gay liberation, more social support, higher wages, safer working conditions, more affordable housing, better schools and more access to medical care. There was organized opposition to the arms race, nuclear power, the death penalty, American foreign policy and the Vietnam War. It took a concerted effort and many years to beat back that rebellion.

Is America ready for socialism?

The social crisis and the conflict at the top have opened a space to discuss genuine socialism, a worker-run democracy where ordinary people take collective control of the economy and direct it to meet human needs. The material conditions already exist for such a society.

Because socialism is based on sharing, there must be more than enough to go around. That is no longer a problem.

If the yearly production of American workers was transformed into dollars and equally shared among the population, it would provide $45,000 for every man, woman and child in the nation, or $180,000 for every family of four. This sum would be many times larger if everyone who wanted to work was employed and if the wealth produced in previous years was included.

The same is true on a world scale. Between 1800 and 2000, the amount of wealth produced grew eight times faster than the global population. Only a few have benefited. By 2001, 497 billionaires enjoyed assets of $1.54 trillion, more than the combined incomes of half of humanity.

The second criterion for socialism is a matter of choice. Human beings create the societies in which they live and they can choose to change them.

Most Americans do not choose socialism, because they are bamboozled into thinking that it would not be in their interest. Our rulers insist that there is no alternative to capitalism, as they intensify their barbaric tactics of blame-the-victim and divide-and-rule. By dazzling us with their power, they hope that we will not discover our own, much greater power.

Capitalism isn’t threatened by talk of cooperation and sharing. However, it cannot tolerate demands for a society based on these principles. That’s why the elite have made "socialism" a dirty word. If people knew they could meet their needs and solve their problems without a ruling class, they would have no need for capitalism.

Socialist organizations bring ordinary people together to discover and use their collective power. Where capitalism divides and fragments, socialists link individuals, causes, past events and future dreams into a unified struggle for human survival.

The battle for ideas is critical. To isolate workers and re-enforce their feelings of powerlessness, the capitalist class infects them with fear and pessimism. In contrast, socialists connect workers’ experience of individual suffering with their collective power to eliminate that suffering.

Most important, socialists believe in the working class even when it does not believe in itself.

The anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s raised the hope of change. So did the massive anti-war demonstrations that preceded America’s invasion of the Middle East. When the U.S. began bombing Baghdad, many became discouraged and retreated from activism.

Today, rising discontent is not matched by a corresponding rise in struggle. While millions of Americans are enraged by the deterioration of their lives and society, decades of defeat have deepened the belief that real change is not possible. But beliefs change.

The working class is obedient, not stupid. It has rejected the war despite a steady stream of pro-war propaganda. Workers are also exceedingly patient, but there is a limit to how much unfairness they will tolerate.

With the economy sliding into recession, the New York Times warns, "It seems that ordinary working families are going to have to wait — at the very minimum — until the next cycle to make up the losses they suffered in this one. There’s no guarantee they will."

No one can know when the next struggle will erupt or what its outcome will be. Only one thing is certain. The needs of the capitalist class will continue to clash with the needs of humanity. If we can organize ourselves in sufficient numbers to end the war and win universal health care, we need not stop there. We could proceed to build a very different world based on peace and security for all.

For more, read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

America in Crisis, Part I: Class Conflict

by Susan Rosenthal

America is deeply divided. For one thing, most Americans want an end to the war against Iraq and some form of universal health care, while the ruling class is committed to the war and to sacrificing social services to pay for it.

This conflict between the rulers and the ruled reflects a deeper, structural rift. In a series of three articles (Z Magazine, February, April, May, 2007), Jack Rasmus documents how,

"From the early 1980s on, income inequality widened, deepened, and accelerated until today well over $1 trillion in income is being transferred every year from the roughly 90 million working class families in the U.S. to corporations and the wealthiest non-working class households."

Thirty-five years of pro-business social policies have hurtled class inequality back to the level of the 1920s. One percent of Americans now owns half the nation's wealth. In 2005, the total wealth of all U.S. millionaires was $30 trillion, more than the annual wealth produced in China, Japan, Brazil, Russia and the European Union combined!

The extent of inequality has angered the working class and alarmed sections of the establishment. Inequality in "the land of opportunity" is usually blamed on the victim for lacking the skills and determination to succeed. Now that the majority has been left behind, this excuse has lost credibility. Consider this editorial comment from the New York Times (August 29, 2007),

"The median household income last year was still about $1,000 less than in 2000, before the onset of the last recession... [W]hen household incomes rose, it was because more members of the household went to work, not because anybody got a bigger paycheck...The earnings of men and women working full time actually fell more than 1 percent last year...[T]he spoils of the nation’s economic growth have flowed almost exclusively to the wealthy and the extremely wealthy, leaving little for everybody else."

Americas are seething with discontent over falling living standards, the environmental crisis, the war and the abysmal state of the medical system. In the spring of 2006, this anger exploded in the largest demonstrations in the nation’s history. Protesting anti-immigrant policies and chanting "We are America," the working class rose up and punched the capitalist class in the face. That fall, the Republican majority was swept from office by voters who were sick of government lies, incompetence and corruption.

Reform or revolution

The powers-that-be are concerned that popular discontent could coalesce into a generalized rebellion against the system. This happened after World War I, during the 1930s, and in the 1960s.

There are only two solutions to such crises: reform from above to restore confidence in the system or revolution from below to replace it. Let’s examine the first option.

Both the Democratic and Republican Parties are committed to victory in Iraq. To counter widespread anti-war sentiment, Washington has repackaged the war as military support for the Iraqi government, with Iraqi incompetence being blamed for "delaying" troop withdrawal. Regular announcements of "signs of progress" imply that the war is winding down when it is actually escalating. This stalling tactic seems to be working, for now.

Reducing class inequality presents a greater challenge. The New York Times concludes, "What are needed are policies to help spread benefits broadly — be it more progressive taxation, or policies to strengthen public education and increase access to affordable health care."

The elite immediately cry "socialism!" at the suggestion that any portion of the social pie should be returned to the working class. Capitalists want a State that enacts policies just for them and rescues only them. And that’s what they get. In countless ways, capitalism functions as a kind of socialism for the rich.

America’s tax laws free the largest corporations from paying any tax whatsoever. Federal judges have allowed ailing industries to abandon billions of dollars in "burdensome" pension obligations. The multi-billion-dollar federal bailout of mortgage lenders has not been matched by any money for working-class home owners facing foreclosure. And while the Bush administration has allowed Medicare-funded insurance companies to keep millions of dollars that should have been returned to beneficiaries, it vigorously pursues beneficiaries to recover money that it says is owed to insurance companies.

The New York Times doesn’t actually want socialism. It wants a lesser-evil capitalism directed by the Democratic Party.

Liberals and liberal institutions condemn the worst aspects of capitalism in order to preserve the system as a whole.

Most Americans want more investment in the nation’s infrastructure. They want universal healthcare and more funding for schools. They want New Orleans rebuilt and their bridges secure. Liberals know that, unless the system can deliver on some level, the majority will eventually reject that system.

Wiser capitalists remember the French Revolution. Those who take too much can lose their heads. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett prefer to return a small piece of the pie than forfeit the entire bakery.

Gates criticizes the "inequality gap" and devotes a tiny portion of his fortune to charity. Buffett says it’s unfair that he pays less than 18 per cent of his income in taxes, when his secretary pays 30 per cent of hers. Gates and Buffett aren’t socialists. Like the robber-baron philanthropists of the last century, they understand that their class must appear generous to preserve its system of organized thievery.

President Roosevelt faced a similar choice when he fought for the New Deal despite opposition from business interests. In A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn explains,

"The Roosevelt reforms…had to meet two pressing needs: to reorganize capitalism in such a way as to overcome the crisis and stabilize the system; also to head off the alarming growth of spontaneous rebellion...— organization of tenants and the unemployed, movements of self-help and general strikes in several cities."

Reining in a 35-year wealth-grabbing binge won’t be easy. Despite liberal demands that Democrats in Congress develop a spine, the Democratic Party serves the business class. Returning any wealth to the working class would undermine Corporate America’s ability to dominate the global economy.

Unless it is forced to use the carrot to quell discontent, the ruling class prefers to use the stick.

The war on terror, with its attack on civil liberties, is the capitalists’ response to inequality and injustice. They seize the wealth; they do not share it. They crush their victims; they do not rescue them. And they don’t feel threatened by a labor movement that is currently too weak to mount a sustained rebellion. At the same time, their confidence has been shaken by their failures to win the war, create a workable immigration policy and resolve the health-care crisis.

Coming next week: America in Crisis, Part II: The Liberal Challenge and the Prospects for Socialism

How Can We Organize Across National Borders?

by Susan Rosenthal

In "Globalization: Theirs or Ours" (August 25), I stated that free trade and protectionist policies both serve the capitalist class and that working people must unite across national borders to raise their living standards. In response, one reader wrote,

I also believe that if all unions in the world work together we can achieve more, but many countries don't have unions, and in some that do, like my birth country Iran, union leaders get arrested all the time. So, my question is, how can we support unions in other counties?

The answer to that question lies in two basic principles of the labor movement: self-determination (what we wish for ourselves, we want for all) and solidarity (an injury to one is an injury to all).

Self-determination

"What we wish for ourselves, we want for all" means that all people must have the right to determine their own affairs. That includes dealing with their own leaders and governments, however corrupt.

The more the U.S. threatens Iran, the more the Iranian government can silence internal dissidents by claiming they are American agents. To support workers in Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Cuba, Columbia, Africa, Asia, etc., American workers must oppose any U.S. intervention in those nations for any reason.

In The New Military Humanism: Lessons From Kosovo, Noam Chomsky documents how NATO bombed the former Yugoslavia "in the name of principles and values." The actual goal was to take control of a portion of eastern Europe that was formerly under Russia’s influence.

Imperialism presents itself as humanitarian intervention in order to override domestic opposition to war.

The U.S. invaded Iraq on the pretext of protecting the world from nuclear attack, protecting the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator and establishing democracy. These have all proved to be lies. The majority of Iraqis want U.S. troops out of their country, and the majority of Americans and American soldiers agree. Yet, Washington continues its military occupation because, from the beginning, this has been a war for oil.

It is impossible to support workers in other nations and also support our own government invading or meddling in those nations. Capitalism forces us to choose: be loyal to your nation and betray your class or be loyal to your class and betray your nation. (By "nation," the capitalist class means its own interests, not those of the majority.)

The loyalty of the labor movement is divided. Without the awareness or consent of their members, top executives in the AFL-CIO have helped Washington overthrow democratically-elected governments, prop up anti-union dictators and support right-wing unions against progressive governments. When the AFL-CIO backed the short-lived coup against Venezuela’s democratically-elected President, Hugo Chávez, many rank-and-file workers were outraged. As the South Bay (California) Labor Council protested,

There’s no solidarity when labor becomes a go-between, laundering funds and resources from the Bush administration and passing them to groups abroad. That role is more appropriate for government agents — agents of empire…We believe that international labor solidarity must come from the heart of the workers in one country to the heart of workers in another country — a…reciprocal relationship.

Solidarity actions

My first demonstration was at the U.S. embassy in Toronto in the spring of 1965. It was a solidarity rally, protesting police violence against civil rights demonstrators in Selma, Alabama. I was amazed that a group of predominately White people would stand for hours in a cold rain to defend the rights of Black people in another country.

Mutual aid (solidarity) is basic to human nature. Over 70 percent of Americans think that the government should ensure that no one goes without food, clothing or shelter. More than three-quarters of the billions of dollars raised by U.S. non-profit organizations every year is donated by individuals. In every disaster, 9/11, Katrina, the Asian tsunami, ordinary people rally to provide aid.

Worker solidarity has a special power. In the fall of 2003, thousands of dockworkers shut down ports in Los Angeles in solidarity with striking grocery workers. In Brazil, unionists organized a solidarity campaign against U.S. intervention in Colombia and supported striking Volkswagen workers in South Africa.

As the world becomes more integrated, the need for solidarity grows. An increasing number of goods are now manufactured by Chinese workers, assembled by Mexican workers, sold by American workers and serviced by Indian workers. Although workers are divided by national boundaries, global capitalism is forcing them to unite to defend their common interests.

Building solidarity

United we stand. Divided we fall. The political relationships we build today make possible more effective solidarity actions tomorrow.

American unionists are sponsoring Iraqi unionists to tour the United States. Talking person-to-person about what’s really going on in Iraq helps break through the web of self-serving lies spun by the people in power.

Every year, people from around the globe gather at World Social Forums and demonstrations against the G-8 summits. Last year, I attended a Labor Notes conference in Detroit. The most memorable meeting was the one where union activists from more than 17 different countries met in one room.

Workers from Northern Ireland, Iraq and Palestine shared their experiences of organizing under military occupation. Auto workers from Germany, France and the U.S. exchanged tactics on fighting assembly-line speedups. Despite language barriers, our similarities were overwhelming. After the meeting, people traded names and email addresses with great excitement.

An Irish nurse and I found much in common and began writing to each other. One by one, we have included other health workers in our discussion. There are now six of us, from three different countries, corresponding by email. The challenges we face on the job and in our lives are remarkably similar. We want to build an organization of international health workers.

You might be wondering what six people in three different countries could possibly do. Knowing that you are not alone, that others are struggling with the same rotten system, is essential to staying sane and continuing the fight. That, alone, is priceless. But we want more than that. The relationships we are building today will be the foundation of tomorrow’s solidarity actions.

There is only one world. Economic booms and slumps spill over national borders and ripple around the globe in synchronous waves. Internet technology allows people to communicate from anywhere on the planet in seconds.

To keep us divided, our rulers insist that we are more different than similar. We are discovering that the opposite is true. And in the process, we are beginning to build a very different world based on sharing and cooperation.

For more on this subject read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

Globalization: Theirs or Ours?

by Susan Rosenthal

Earlier this week, U.S. President George W. Bush, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón met to plan further integration of their three economies. Thousands of people protest these summit meetings, not because they oppose international cooperation but because they reject policies that benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else.

Globalization could benefit us all. Telerad is a Singapore-based corporation that analyzes X-rays and  medical scans for hospitals around the world. Currently, it can take weeks to get results from a CAT scan or an MRI. Telerad promises that an image from New York can be analyzed and a report returned in less than half an hour.

This looks like a win-win situation — improving the ability to provide timely treatment at a lower cost — until you consider that higher-priced American labor is being exchanged for lower-priced Asian labor.

Globalization is being structured like automation was, to make the rich richer. By 2000, U.S. workers took half the time to produce all the goods and services they produced in 1973. If the benefits of this rise in productivity had been shared, most Americans could be enjoying a four-hour work day, or a six-month work year, or they could be taking off every other year from work with no loss of pay.

Needless to say, this is not the case. All the benefits of automation went to the capitalist class. By 2000, the average American worker was putting in 199 more hours on the job, five weeks more than in 1973.

Ordinary folks are working harder and longer so the capitalist class can haul in the dough. In the mid-1970’s, average executive compensation was 35 times the average wage. By 1999, the average CEO of a major US corporation was taking home 330 times the average wage and 476 times the average blue-collar wage. By 2004, the portion of the economy going home with workers dropped to the lowest level ever recorded.

Governments and corporations are shaping globalization the same way they shaped automation, to boost profits at workers’ expense.

Divide and profit

Cathleen Wedlake has worked in the newspaper trade for 38 years. She and 30 of her co-workers were laid off when the San Jose Mercury News outsourced their jobs to Asia via Express KCS, an India-based corporation that provides production services for more than 40 newspapers in northern California.

National borders exist to maximize profits. Jobs are allowed to migrate to cheaper locations, while the people who work those jobs are blocked from moving to higher-paying locations.

The same year that the U.S. and Mexico launched their free-trade agreement (NAFTA), the Clinton administration launched Operation Gatekeeper to block Mexican workers from entering the U.S. Both moves served the interests of capitalists on both sides of the border.

American goods entering Mexico put small Mexican producers out of business, creating a more desperate (and therefore cheaper) workforce for larger Mexican employers and an illegal (and therefore desperate and cheaper) workforce for American employers.

The solution to these problems is generally posed as a choice between free trade and protectionism. However, both of these policies benefit the capitalist class. Protectionist polices shield weaker industries from global competition, while free-trade policies enable stronger industries to penetrate foreign markets.

The American union movement has traditionally sided with the protectionist wing of capitalism. This strategy has failed to save jobs, as thousands of laid-off steel and autoworkers can attest. Furthermore, it has hamstrung the labor movement by pitting American workers against their counter-parts in other lands.

A more effective strategy would be to demand an end to national borders and for workers to defend their jobs as if these borders did not exist.

Wedlake and her co-workers at the San Jose Mercury News face the same challenge as any workforce threatened with replacement by lower-paid workers. The low-paid workers must be incorporated into the union and paid exactly the same. This is not a free-trade stance, but a pro-worker antidote to the divide-and-profit polices of employers.

While they promote free trade, not a single head of state supports opening borders to workers. On the contrary, capitalists go berserk at the thought of abolishing national boundaries because their system can function only by dividing workers and trapping them in low-waged areas. Of course, they would never admit to such selfish motives. Instead, they warn that open borders would cause a flood of impoverished people to drown America. This is absurd.

If the benefits of global integration were shared, people would have no economic reason to move.

Globalization has deepened the conflict over which class will shape the future. The capitalist class is planning more miseries for the majority. The alternative is for workers in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa to come together as one workforce to demand equal pay for equal work. We would then have the collective power to dispense with the master class and run the world for ourselves and each other, raising living standards for everyone.

For more on this subject, read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

The Science of Change: How it Happens and How it Doesn’t

by Susan Rosenthal

Facts can motivate people, but not always in the ways we want.

I attended a lecture by Dr Helen Caldicott, whose mission is to educate the public about the dangers of nuclear power. As Caldicott neared the end of her speech, a young woman cried out in terror, "We’re all going to die! We’re all going to die!" as her friends led her from the lecture hall.

Facts can anger people into action and also shock them into despair and dissociation.

In medicine, it is generally understood that facts and frightening consequences rarely change human behavior. Everyone knows that smoking damages your health. Everyone knows that fast food clogs your arteries. Everyone knows that lack of exercise shortens your life. Yet people continue to smoke, eat fast food and fail to exercise.

The knowledge that they are harming themselves does not empower most people; it provides them with further evidence of their powerlessness.

The shock-them-into-change strategy doesn’t work in medicine. Yet social and political activists continue to embrace it as their strategy of choice. When telling people how bad things are proves ineffective, the shock factor is jacked up as if yelling louder will make the difference. When that fails, pessimism generally follows and the bulk of humanity is wrongly dismissed as stupid or uncaring.

In fact, most people know what’s going on in the world. They may not know all the details but they know the basics — that the world is run for the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. Most Americans know that Washington invaded Iraq on false pretenses and they want the war to end. Nevertheless, the president remains in office, and the war continues.

If the truth could set us free, we would be free by now. However, as Noam Chomsky and others have pointed out, society is structured to keep most people feeling powerless most of the time, regardless of what they know.

How does change happen?

Many researchers have investigated the factors that change human behavior in medicine, in prisons and in the workplace. Regardless of the setting, three elements are consistently identified, which are most effective when combined. I have applied them to the problem of social change.

Social support. People need support from others to overcome feelings of powerlessness, to create strategies for change and to act on them. In the context of supportive relationships, we learn that we are neither crazy nor powerless. By pulling together, we give each other hope and strength.

To find out how organization counteracts powerlessness, psychologists at the University of Sussex interviewed participants in "traditional marches, fox-hunt sabotages, anti-capitalist street parties, environmental direct actions, and industrial mass pickets." The factors that contributed to a heightened sense of power included: being part of something bigger than yourself; increased hope of change; and a sense of unity and mutual support within the group.

Solidarity is a powerful antidote to pessimism. Activists reported a deep sense of happiness while involved in collective protests. Simply recalling their experiences caused them to smile. The researchers concluded that "people should get more involved in campaigns, struggles and social movements, not only in the wider interest of social change, but also for their own personal good."

Presenting problems as solvable. To change their behavior, people need to see themselves and the world differently, in ways that make change seem possible. For example, explaining how the attack on immigrants is part of a divide-and-rule strategy to raise profits highlights the power of the capitalist class. In contrast, explaining that a divide-and-rule strategy is necessary because capitalists could never rule a united working class highlights the power of ordinary people. The facts are the same but the feeling is more hopeful, and feelings motivate actions.

Howard Zinn is so widely loved because he believes in us and invites us to believe in ourselves and each other. The title of his latest book, A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, says it all. Michael Moore’s film, Sicko, has made a huge impact, not only because it reveals the horrors of the American medical system, but because it shows them to be neither necessary nor inevitable.

Repetition. When the level of struggle is high, people seem to change overnight in a kind of explosive chain reaction. At all other times, the dominant ideas are those that maintain the status quo. Changing those ideas requires patient and repeated encouragement. It’s like boiling water.

You put the kettle on the stove and turn up the heat, but nothing seems to happen. Do you remove the kettle in disgust at the failure of heat to boil water? Of course not! We know that heat increases the speed of water molecules, a process that we cannot see directly. When enough heat has been applied and the molecules are moving fast enough, a change of state will occur — liquid transforms into gas.

Boiling water is a predictable, mechanical process. Changing people is more complicated because we cannot predict when a change of mind will occur. Nor can we know all the factors that will be required for that transformation. We must have patience. Just because nothing seems to be happening doesn’t mean that people aren’t boiling under the surface.

The bottom line is that shocking people with facts can deepen feelings of powerlessness. To counter pessimism and passivity, we must apply the science of social change. We need to build activist organizations that can raise people’s confidence that this is not the world we deserve but the one we have inherited and are collectively responsible for changing.

For more on this subject read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

A Time of Transition

by Susan Rosenthal

Times of transition are very difficult.

In good times, people are more open to new ideas and more willing to organize. The fight for civil rights of the 1950s fed the anti-war movement of the 1960s. Both fueled movements for workers’ rights and for women’s, gay and Black liberation. As millions of people moved into struggle, there was widespread belief that we could change the world.

In the 1970s, the capitalist class launched a counter-offensive to reverse the gains of the 1960s. They were so successful that, today, most Americans believe that real change is not possible. An entire generation has known only setbacks and defeats. Many have swallowed the lie that there is not enough to go around, that we must lower our expectations, that the only choice is the lesser evil. In such bad times, people hunker down to survive and can’t bear to think about anything else.

We are currently in a time of transition, which is the most difficult of all because growing discontent is not matched by a corresponding rise in struggle. There is enough struggle to raise people’s hopes, but not enough to win significant gains.

The anti-globalization movement of the late 1990s raised hopes for change. So did the massive anti-war demonstrations that preceded America’s invasion of the Middle East. When the U.S. began bombing Baghdad, many people became deeply discouraged and retreated from activity.

In the spring of 2006, the largest demonstration in American history raised the demand for immigrants rights. Demoralization followed as Washington escalated its campaign of intimidation, arrests and deportations. Immigrants rights organizations were thrown into conflict over how to proceed, and momentum was lost.

Hopes were raised again when the Republicans were swept out of Congress and dashed again when the Democrats voted more funding for the war.

This roller coaster of struggle is hard to take. Pessimism can seem protective. Why get your hopes up only to be disappointed? However, pessimism provides no real refuge and blocks us from seizing opportunities that continue to appear.

America is seething with discontent over the war, environmental crisis, falling living standards, government corruption, and the abysmal state of the medical system. The episodic eruptions of the past decade have the potential to coalesce into a generalized rebellion against the system. The ruling class is concerned about this.

In May, Congress threw the working class a bone by raising the minimum wage. This move marks a shift from the unrelenting attacks of the past few decades. The confidence of the capitalist class has been shaken by their inability to win the war and by their failure to create a workable immigration policy. Their faltering provides an opening for us to step up our demands. To do this, we must fight against pessimism and passivity.

Billions of people live in unnecessary misery, filling all of us with pain. Because human beings are such a social species, our brains are constructed to feel the pain of others as if it were our own. Such compassion is critical to safeguard the common interest. However, when there seems to be no solution, this pain can be overwhelming — it can be difficult to know where our pain ends and that of others begins.

The medical system treats social pain as a personal problem or affliction. As a result, most people mistakenly consider their pain to be a sign of personal inadequacy. When they see no fight-back, they feel even more discouraged, and some surrender to despair.

Every year more than 30,000 Americans kill themselves and half a million are treated in emergency rooms for self-inflicted wounds. This is just the tip of a massive iceberg of social pain.

There is only one remedy for the soul sickness that capitalism creates — a socialist society where ordinary people pull together to solve our common problems. No hero is coming to save the day. It’s up to us to save ourselves by organizing ourselves.

In the past, wars have led to revolutions. The 1960s provided a glimpse of what we can achieve. This time, we must go all the way.

We cannot give in to pessimism. Our survival depends on it.

For more on this topic, read POWER and Powerlessness. Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com

Abortion: Whose Decision?

by Susan Rosenthal

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to outlaw a form of late-term abortion. As the one dissenting judge remarked, the ruling bans "a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

This blow against women’s rights did not come out of the blue. As soon as abortion was legalized in 1973, anti-abortionists began picketing and bombing women’s clinics. In 1976, the Hyde Amendment eliminated abortion funding for poor women. Since Hyde, a web of restrictive laws have made it increasingly difficult for women to access abortion. Today, ninety percent of U.S. counties offer no abortion services at all.

Not only is it harder to get abortion, it’s also harder to get contraception, including the morning-after pill. Employers can refuse to provide contraceptive coverage in their health plans, pharmacists can refuse to dispense oral contraceptives, and doctors can deny patients’ requests for birth control information. As a result, women need more access to abortion, not less.

Women with money can always get safe abortions. Restrictions on abortion hit working-class women hardest. Before abortion was legalized, 90 percent of the women who died from illegal abortions in New York City were Black and Hispanic.

Regardless of your personal views on the subject, it is dangerous to support any legal restriction on abortion. The right to control one’s body is a basic democratic principle. If women are denied this right, then no one’s rights are safe.

The Supreme Court justified its ruling by saying that it wanted to protect women from making harmful decisions. Anti-abortion campaigns are designed to make women feel guilty about having abortions. That guilt is then used to claim that abortion harms women’s mental health. "Informed consent" and mandatory counseling laws aim to dissuade women from having abortions and make them feel guilty if they do. That such measures traumatize women seems to be of no concern.

Anti-abortionists completely ignore the fact that abortion is much safer than childbirth. The risk of death from legal abortion in the U.S. is extremely rare compared with the much larger risk of dying in childbirth. And childbirth has well-documented mental-health risks in the form of postpartum depression and psychosis.

The abortion debate is not about what’s best for women. The ruling class doesn't care about women’s health or their lives. If they did, we would have paid parental leave and a national system of childcare. The attack on abortion is part of a larger strategy to remove decision-making power from ordinary people. In the workplace, the boss dictates the worker’s every move, including bathroom breaks. In society, the State dictates personal behaviors, including sexuality and reproduction.

Violation of the right-to-decide is so taken for granted that people get caught up in debates about how the State should control people. The right of the State to dictate personal matters is never questioned.

A genuine democratic society would provide all the options — sex education, contraception, abortion, support for having children — and trust people to make the best decisions for themselves. Of course, some people’s choices will turn out badly. However, poor outcomes cannot be avoided by denying people choices. Women who cannot obtain safe abortions will have unsafe abortions, with their much greater risk of infection and death.

We must learn the lessons of the past 30 years. The right to abortion cannot be trusted to "pro-choice" liberals who have failed to defend abortion rights. Without the right to abortion there is no choice. We need free abortion on demand, so that all women have the right to choose.

The right to abortion can’t be trusted to politicians either. In 2006, Democrats joined with Republicans to outlaw abortion in South Dakota. Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton calls abortion a "sad, even tragic choice" that shouldn’t "ever have to be exercised, or only in very rare circumstances."

The right to control our bodies is a working-class demand that goes hand-in-hand with the right to control our lives, our work, and our society. These basic rights will be won only when ordinary people organize in their millions to fight for them.

For more on this subject read POWER and Powerlessness, Chapter 15, "Beware the Middle Ground." Available at www.powerandpowerlessness.com