How capitalism works

How capitalism works explained from a worker's perspective...

Abba Ramos, a veteran organizer in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union:

"If they can get a trained monkey to unload that boxcar tomorrow morning, rest assured, they'll have them over there and they'll have some bananas for lunch, and you'll be out on the street looking for work. Simple as that. You've got to remember, they follow only one rule of economic law, and that's that maximum production-minimum cost yields the greatest amount of profit. They don't deviate from that."

What we need to do

Just start leafleting where you work and where you live. I guarantee you will find some like minds very quickly if you are producing materials people can relate to. In your community, start with repetitive leafleting in a two or three square block area. A double-sided 8 1/2 by 11 leaflet is pretty cheap to photocopy. People in your area must read some newspaper?

I often get invited into peoples homes to meet and discuss things with their families, friends, neighbors and fellow workers after having a discussion about the "robbery at the gas pumps" while pumping gas or "how much longer are we going to be able to afford to eat" while standing in front of the meat counter in the super-market.

People are going to have to begin putting their thoughts in writing if we want people to take us seriously as we seek real change. Only the written word means anything as far as getting people's attention.

All of my business cards now ask the question:

How is Barack Obama's Wall Street war economy working for you?

This question gets to the heart of anti-imperialist education.

Just two or three people thinking along the same lines can get a neighborhood to act. Same at work or in school at a community center in your union or at church. One little raindrop doesn't amount to much but let it pour.

We need working class "think tanks and action clubs." Get a few people together who share common problems and this is where social change begins.

If you distribute things along these lines modified as required, you should be able to find people with open minds:

This is a very good article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/03/say-goodbye-to-social-security/

However one important point is missing and there are several glaring weaknesses.

Social Security would be secure and could be vastly expanded with real living benefits paid IF we had a full-employment economy.

Never mind economics--- common sense tells us that we can't have millions of unemployed, under-employed and poverty-wage paid workers not paying into the Social Security Trust Fund or paying so little because of partial employment and poverty wages and still expect the Social Security Trust Fund to remain solvent forever with anything other than very limited programs and meager, miserly payouts.

I would also note that while this writer acknowledges the good work done by economist John Kenneth Galbraith, he fails to observe what Galbraith believed to be primary: ending militarism and wars so society could reap the benefits of "peace dividends" in order to create huge government programs like National Public Health Care and National Public Child Care which would create tens of millions of new jobs providing services that are really needed--- unlike militarism and war which we need like we need holes in our heads.

I think this article is good but needs to be strengthened.

John Kenneth Galbraith was an honest liberal and among the present crop of intellectuals honesty--- liberal or otherwise--- is difficult to come by as most seemed to be influenced in their "thinking" more by the size of their pay-checks than the common good as is readily apparent from all these phony liberals, progressives and leftist intellectuals supporting a warmonger like Obama determined to make the working class pay for Wall Street's imperialist wars through austerity measures such as cutting and slashing needed social programs--- everything from public education to Social Security and even Medicaid and Medicare when the state goal of the Affordable Care Act was supposed to be to strengthen Medicaid and Medicare... more lies.

I would also point out that John Kenneth Galbraith's son, James Kenneth Galbraith, is more on the progressive side than his father was.

Here is an excellent article written by James Kenneth Galbraith (written in 2009):

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0903.galbraith.html

And more recently--- 2012--- aptly titled, "We told you so:"

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/we_told_you_so_20120518//

I would also note that John Kenneth Galbraith never hesitated to bring Marxists into discussions with him on economic matters which provided greater insight to problems and served to strengthen democracy while educating the public.

John Kenneth Galbraith even wrote a book together with a noted Soviet Marxist-Leninist economist.

John Kenneth Galbraith constantly pointed out that it was wrong to think modern societies can have both "guns and butter." This from a man who had experience managing a war-time economy at the beginning of World War II.

Obama has rejected even the most liberal/progressive economic advice in favor of the reactionary advice he receives from those most loyal to Wall Street's greedy, parasitical, money-grubbing interests which always lead to conflict and wars.

Alan L. Maki