Coming Attacks on the Working Class:

[Holy_Seduction]

“60 Minutes” exposé reveals massive Pentagon price-gouging​

‘Media reports indicate that Biden and the Democrats have already agreed to Republican demands for a freeze on discretionary spending, with the exception of defense and veterans’ benefits. Biden’s record $1 trillion Pentagon budget, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, will remain intact, while outlays for Medicaid, food stamps, welfare, education, housing, job training, public transit and the environment will be substantially cut.

There will be no increase in taxes on corporations or the rich, and money allotted to hire more Internal Revenue Service agents to crack down on wealthy tax cheats will be slashed.’

Massive expenditure? Shift the burden onto the backs of working people while slashing social spending?

Say it ain’t true! Say it’s just ‘media reports!’

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/27/dgyp-m27.html

 

[Holy_Seduction]

If as Brown University Cost of War project found, weapons makers spent $2.5B lobbying since the war against terror, it seems clear that wealthy and powerful corporations are the real agenda setters.

When weapons makers alone employ some 700+ lobbyists a year, the role of the regime as a corporate clearing house becomes apparent…

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/27/dgyp-m27.html

 

[VinnyVeritas]

I think the real agenda setters are those who make the purchases, not the suppliers.

 

[Chobham]

Cuts in welfare benefits? Sounds more like an attack on the unworking class to me.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

~~ tee hee ~~

 

[ll74]

Cuts in welfare benefits? Sounds more like an attack on the unworking class to me.

Over 80% of welfare recipients have at least one person working in the household.

Fuck off.

https://www.census.gov/library/stor...illion married,for many U.S. working families.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

Cuts in welfare benefits? Sounds more like an attack on the unworking class to me.

Currently employed or not, they are working class, based on their relationship to productive forces.

Now let’s discuss what drives this. We know the answer. Let’s not pretend otherwise.

After decades of betrayals by rotten, pro-corporate unions, the working class is finally getting off its face and is preparing to resume massive, class struggle.

The ruling class is seriously perturbed by this. It imposes collective punishment on the working class for daring to demand more than subsistence-level wages.

The ruling class does this by raising interest rates to begin recession and subsequently, inflation, which leads to rising unemployment.

Rising unemployment forces workers to compete for jobs by accepting employment for ever more meager wages.

Slashing social spending deepens this attack on the working class.

Marx explained the concept of an industrial reserve army in his writings saying that:

‘Capitalist societies require a surplus population of unemployed or underemployed workers. This reserve army of labor keeps wages low and hinders workers from organizing effectively to demand better working conditions and higher pay.’

Marx explained that:

‘…the industrial reserve army, during the periods of stagnation and average prosperity, weighs down the active army of workers’ [Das Kapital, Volume 1, Chapter 25].

In this connection, Marx also said that:

‘the accumulation of capital is accompanied by the accumulation of misery, agony of toil, slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the yopposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.’

VinnyV’s ‘tee hee’ captures perfectly the ruling class reaction to the disclosure of its role in this process.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

I've lived among the poor, the welfare class and the lazy and have pointed out many times that most of them are grifters; grasshoppers living off the bounty of the ants. The parents of my students spent their days sipping coffee at Denny's and keeping each other up to date with system-gaming tips and for the most part, were satisfied with their standard of living as long as it meant that the only productive work they performed was the mental gyrations used to fleece the rest of us with the aid of bleeding hearts who never blame their prized pet examples for the logical consequences of their "thought" processes.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

lazy and have pointed out many times that most of them are grifters;

That is as old as Pharaoh, King of Egypt.

grasshoppers living off the bounty of the ants.

With grasshoppers being the 1% and The Next 9%, who together are the ruling class.

satisfied … as long as, etc.

This doesn’t address Marx’ discussion of the necessity of a reserve, industrial army under the rule of Capital. Does it. Unless your point is that your acquaintances are content to play that role. Your description sounds quite petty bourgeoisie to me.

Your ire derives from what Marx identified as the tendency of profit to decline in proportion to Capitalism’s development. That feature is integral to Capitalism. That your preferred system cannot produce enough for either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie is not the fault of workers or of the ruling class or of the pharaohs of antiquity. That’s just Kapitalism.

 

[VinnyVeritas]

I think you need to work a bit more on your proofreading...

People like Gates and Musk don't strike me as lazy ne'er-do-wells.

 

[Holy_Seduction]

I think you need to work a bit more on your proofreading...

People like Gates and Musk don't strike me as lazy ne'er-do-wells.

I think you should read your ‘tee hee’ remark as today’s equivalent of the famed taunt attributed to Marie Antoinette, ‘let them eat cake.’