We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Crisis. What Crisis? Profits Soar!

by James Petras from Voltaire

In this article the author reports on the bonanza of profits that big corporations are enjoying by mostly exploiting the opportunities that this current economic crisis provides. And he is critical of progressives who keep claiming that the system will disintegrate due to its contradictions.
While Exxon-Mobile reaped over 100% growth of profits in 2010 and the auto corporations recorded their biggest profits in recent years, the workers’ wages and living standards declined and state-sector employees suffered harsh cutbacks and massive layoffs. It is clear that the recovery of corporate profit is based on the harshest exploitation of labor and the biggest transfers of public resources to the large private corporations. The capitalist state, with Democratic President Obama in the lead, has transferred billions to big capital via direct bailouts, virtual interest free loans, tax cuts and by pressuring labor to accept lower wages and health and pension givebacks. The White House plan for ‘recovery’ has worked beyond expectations – corporate profits have recovered; “only” the vast majority of workers have fallen deeper into crises.