Capitalism
in the US is exposing itself with renewed force as it invigorates
self-contradictions and faces fracases with appearance of farce, and it
fails to resolve these. One of the matured capitalist economies, and the
Lord of the World, is presenting the show.
Partial shutdown of the US government is
now old news. Near to a million people is out of work. Probably these
employed-without-pay-people include the diplomats providing sermons to
friendly politicians and poor people in poor countries. From one of
NASAA websites to a newspaper clipping board and reduced menu in the
White House, the nerve center of the federal machine, to reduced number
of staff to the US vice president and untrimmed Washington DC lawn bear
the stamp of the failing politics and economy. A deadlocked legislative
assembly is failing to come to an agreement. And, the assembly
represents the people!
There is the threat of the US defaulting
on its debt for the first time in history. If the state’s debt limit is
not increased one week from now, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warns, the
entire global economy could be in peril. The debt ceiling deadline is
October 17, 2013. And, Jim Yong Kim, the World Bank president, has
issued warning: The US is just “days away from a very dangerous moment”
because of the borrowing crisis.
In the background, there is a market with
competition. And, the competition is in all its senses and forms: from
money to politics. And, the competition is for profit: in terms of money
and in terms of political gain; and political gain is for economic
interests.
President Barack Obama knows, as a
Bloomberg report says, the bond market is the boss. Obama expressed the
fact of the economy while discussing with reporters the threat of a
historic default. (David J. Lynch and Cordell Eddings, “Obama Says Real
Boss in Default Showdown Means Bonds Call Shots”)
Journalist Bob Woodward has an
interesting story in “The Agenda”, an account of his economic
policy-making: president Clinton once said: “You mean to tell me that
the success of the program [Clinton was planning to initiate] and my
re-election hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of f------ bond
traders?” (ibid.)
Yes, in the economy, market has almost mythical power. And, it’s the skipper.
After witnessing the bond market’s power,
James Carville, Clinton’s top political operative, joked to the Wall
Street Journal at the time: “I used to think if there was reincarnation,
I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball
hitter. But now I want to comeback as the bond market. You can
intimidate everybody.” (ibid.)
Yes, market intimidates many. Market
often doesn’t allow some politicians to act the way they planned if they
don’t dare to defy or challenge it. And, their desire and courage to
throw challenge is not entirely a subjective force. It’s not their
personal choice. Reliance on market doesn’t allow mobilization of social
forces that can extend support to challenge market.
In the matured, but troubled economy,
market is the disciplining force, and the disturbing force. It’s a cruel
creditor also although the creditor has history of failures. It fails
regularly although a section of pundits try their best to hide the
failure-fact.
The US gov. was forced to pay 0.35
percent for four-week borrowings, up from 0.12 percent. And, in this
fiscal year, the US gov. will need to borrow an average of almost $11
billion each week. This borrowing reality makes Obama so sensitive to
investors. Moreover, under current law, debt held by the public would
exceed annual output by 2038, and this borrowing would be unsustainable.
(ibid.) And, this again shows creditors’ crushing power.
However, these will be resolved at the
11th hour. The factional fight, conflict of interests, will come to a
compromise as there is election and the discontent electors and as there
is common interest. It’s the interest of the ruling elites. A different
outcome will be historic.
But the US voters’ mood has already been expressed: An intense aversion, a stronger anger.
Sixty percent of the Americans, an NBC
News/Wall Street Journal poll finds, would have defeated and replaced
every single member of the Congress including their own representatives
if they had the opportunity. Only 35 percent had the opposite opinion.
The figure, 60 percent, is the highest-ever on the question. The poll
shows the voters don’t even prefer own representatives. In August 2011,
it was 54 percent; in January 2012, it increased two more percents; and
in July, it increased to 57 percent. So, there is a consistent rise.
Moreover, 47 percent of the respondents do not strongly identify with
either party. A respondent from Mississippi, a strong Democrat, said: “I
am prayerful for a revolution.” (NBC News and CNBC, Oct. 11, 2013,
Domenico Montanaro, “Fire 'em! Majority want to toss entire Congress:
Poll”)
And, a record-low – 14 percent – perceive
the economy is headed in the right direction. It was more than double –
30 percent – in last month, the biggest single-month drop since the
1990-US gov.-shutdown. (ibid.)
More data are there: 78 percent of the
respondents perceive the economy is on the wrong track, and, to 42
percent, it will worsen, and 63 percent feel less confident that the
economy will get better. To some concerned, the figures “are associated
with historic lows in public confidence.” (ibid.)
Sometimes, data are disturbing to
somebody. It makes one dumb or angry if it’s found: In the richest
economy of the world, 146 million or half the population is in poverty
(49 million) and near poor (97 million), 18.4 million homes are empty
although there are 842,000 homeless in a given week, 22 empty homes for
every homeless person but they can’t find homes, wages are stagnant
although workers produce more than ever; if McDonald’s can afford to pay
its CEO $15 million per year it can afford to pay its workers a living
wage of $25K, the contradiction that an Occupy Wall Street journal
termed, citing LiberationNews.org, “The Absurd Contradictions of
Capitalism”.
Citing the same source the journal
identifies the Largest Low-Wage Employers: WalMart, Pizza Hut, Dunkin
Donuts, KFC, Staples, Target, Outback, Red Lobster, Subway, Olive
Garden, McDonald’s. Then, it says: “They can afford pay better”, and,
“78% of the 50 largest low-wage employers have been profitable every
year for the past 3 years”.
But the contradictions are not absurd.
These are the contradictions the economy normally generates. These are
only a few of many such seeming absurdities.
Even, the factional fight and the partial
gov. shutdown, the factional fight in home and interferences in other
countries to resolve factional fights among the ruling elites in those
countries, the factional fight and the possible threat to the global
economy, the fight to secure factional interests although the fight
threatens bigger interests seem absurd, but normal at certain stage of
maturity and abundance.
These absurd-seeming-normal
contradictions bring workers and Occupy Wall Street participants and
others in protest marches and mobilizations, inspire to initiate
alternatives and create spaces and gather knowledge and experience. It
is neither a foray into the domain of finance-lords nor an oddity of a
few.
These contradictions mobilized protesting
people at New York’s Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy Wall
Street movement, on September 17, 2013 to mark the second anniversary of
the movement that blossomed around the country and inspired people
around the world and influenced movements in countries. On that day,
Occupy Wall Street protesters stood in front of a barricade at Zuccotti
Park.
The OWS protesters, the people, marched
around the Wall Street. They marched to Washington Square Park.
Protesters marched through Soho. Rallies and events across the city were
organized.
The socially embroidered movement drifted
into wider activities: Feed the hungry in respective communities,
mobilize 70,000 volunteers to assist the superstorm Sandy survivors,
protect debtors from predatory lending, buy up distressed debt and
cancel that, occupy homes for people threatened with eviction, put
pressure on banks to renegotiate loans, protest GM crops, support farm
workers, occupy farms with demand for fair pay and safe food, organize
new economic models that include Occupy Money Co-operative and
Alternative Banking Group, which will provide low-cost financial
services and return profits to communities, trying to shift the balance
of power from bankers to depositors, raise fund for Bangladesh garment
factory workers, open artists’ studios to the members of public, sell
the book Wobblies! A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the
World, join struggle for a fair and living wage, march against
corruption (Occupy Wall and ALL Streets against Corruption). Alternative
Banking, a project of Occupy Wall Street, is dedicated to the
proposition that citizens are capable of and entitled to an
understanding of how the financial system under which they live
operates.
The absurd looking numbers, rational to
the system, expose a lot of the system that propagates self-superiority
while the numbers teach lessons, enrich experience. This lesson is not
only for a single society. The numbers from one of the most advanced,
matured capitalist democracies appear as learning materials to others
also.
The numbers expose limitations of power
of the richest capitalist economy in the world: It fails to eliminate
poverty despite having a lot of riches; the ruling elites’ maturity of
hundreds of years doesn’t make it capable of not endangering its own
ruling system; the system’s all manipulation powers, seemingly magical,
that take into service of media, amusement and porn industries and of
sciences including psychology are incapable of keeping people always
busy with games and porno and baseless dreams and trifling issues
including tattoo on this part of human body or on that part; all
surveillance and control mechanism at mass scale can’t always restrain
people from getting disenchanted and dissatisfied and angry.
Amazingly, despite the failures, the
system charges people for its survival: the melting down of financial
institutions including banks, the bail out money, the evictions from
homes, the unemployment, the failing health care system, the hunger, the
closed down schools and jobless teachers, the cut down budget for
scientific research, the gov.-shut down, the debt. People pay, in one
way or another, for all these. And, that’s the efficiency of the system:
It can hide its failures and charge the people. It can hide its
failures to a lot of persons, actually a crowd of millions, in home and
abroad.
But this efficiency is getting
diminished. Incidents, in home and other countries, appear as examples
of the diminishing power. Obviously, there are personalities trying to
sell the system’s appearance as unchallenged one. But fractures in the
torso and weaknesses in the limbs don’t miss many eyes.
Shrewd ruling elites even in some poor
countries can take advantage of the reality. Instead, it’s their
stupidity if the elites in poor countries are cowed down by blank
sounds. This is an opportunity or failure in the camps of the elites in
poor and rich economies.
But people in all lands can find shining
lines over dark clouds as the numbers turn striking. New political
debates and conversations can be initiated, and new approaches can be
devised. People in many lands can find and create spaces for forward
movement as the Occupy Wall Street moves forward despite its stumbles,
failings and fallings.
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