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Vol. 73/No. 29      August 3, 2009

 
Capitalism’s deepening depression
(editorial)
 
With the accelerating contraction of production and growing instability of finance capital, the world capitalist system is in the beginning stages of a depression. The devastating impact that the economic crisis is having on the vast majority of humanity will deepen, underscoring the need for the working class to get rid of this dog-eat-dog system once and for all.

As of the end of June, 16.5 percent of the U.S. workforce was jobless or underemployed—some 26 million people. Workers in other imperialist countries—such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan—also face rising unemployment.

Those who have been able to keep a full-time job face fewer hours and cuts in weekly pay. In the United States the average number of hours worked in a week is now only 33. More and more workers are being forced to take unpaid time off on a regular basis.

The depression falls with even more devastating consequences on workers in semicolonial countries and on oppressed nationalities in the imperialist countries.

Under the conditions of the expanding crisis the U.S. capitalist rulers press to deepen divisions in the working class, significantly weakening affirmative action while strengthening the assault on immigrant rights.

This is only the beginning.

The only thing the employers can do to turn around their declining rates of profit is to lower the standard of living for working people. As can be seen in the massive cuts in social spending, furloughs, and other measures in California, the capitalists try to solve their crisis on the backs of working people, drastically cutting pensions, health-care coverage, access to education, and affordable, livable housing.

The bosses and their government are waging a counterrevolutionary assault against the gains workers have won in struggle and depend on. This assault can only be answered through a revolutionary struggle for power, a proletarian revolution, to end the rule of the world’s billionaire families and reorganize society for the benefit of the vast majority.

The Socialist Workers candidates in the United States are campaigning for building a mass movement that can unify and strengthen the working class as we advance in this direction. They demand an increase in the federal minimum wage to union scale, guaranteed unemployment compensation for all workers until they find a job, and a crash public works program to put millions to work building schools, hospitals, roads, and public transportation. They call for nationalization of the land and housing stock to guarantee affordable, quality housing without fear of eviction.

The working class needs to take political power. Vote Socialist Workers!
 
 
Related articles:
Official figures mask scale of joblessness  
 
 
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