Worker's Pay and the Election

Online at: http://politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/271/1/76/

Workers' Pay and the Election [Archival Material]
By Thomas Riggins

With less than two months before the election a brief review of the economy shows that there can be no reason for working people to vote Republican. Nevertheless, an AFL-CIO official discussing union organization recently stated (on CSPAN 9/6/04) that about one third of union members typically vote Republican. If union members are the most class conscious workers what does this say about the voting habits of the vast majority of working people who are not unionized? If working people realized that their falling pay rates and other economic hardships were directly related to Republican policies directed against their interests there would be little likelihood of a Republican victory in November. Lets see how workers are faring in the economy on the eve of the election.

Eduardo Porter authored the main front page story for the New York Times back on July 18, entitled "Hourly Pay in U.S. Not Keeping Pace With Price Rises." A close look at this article affords us the opportunity of analyzing the current state of US capitalism’s exploitation of working people.

Porter points out that workers paychecks are falling behind the increases in inflation, but he optimistically predicts that wages will go up "if businesses continue to hire." That’s a big if, especially when he admits there is a large surplus of workers due to loss of jobs over the last three years (over a million lost jobs!).

Marx called this surplus the industrial reserve army of labor and its function is to keep wages low – so don’t look for any great amelioration of the working class. Porter quotes Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist, to the effect that higher wages won’t be on the agenda due to the higher unemployment rate (5.6 per cent according to the official figures – much larger in reality).

Wages are actually dropping. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on July 16 a 1.1 per cent drop in June in the wages of production workers. The government’s definition of "production worker" is a little different from Marx’s as it may include both workers who do and who do not create surplus value. The government definition, according to Porter, is "non-management workers ranging from nurses and teachers to hamburger flippers and assembly line workers." For purposes of my article this is the pool from which surplus value is created, so this group, for all intents and purposes, corresponds to "the proletariat" – they account for about 80 per cent of the workers or "workforce" according to Porter.

These figures boil down to this – the working class is getting shafted by the capitalists and their wages are the lowest they have been since October 2001. While the capitalists are wallowing in money, the workers have regressed to the level of three years ago.

But, if the workers have less money to spend the capitalists will see their markets contract – this can’t be good for them, or so you might think.

Not to worry – the workers don’t make enough money to really effect the market. The bottom 50 per cent of households account for only a third of the spending according to another economist, Mark Zandi, cited by Porter.

This may be a ‘’big blow’’ for workers (Porter calls the proletariat the ‘’lower middle class’’) but things are not all that bad. Porter quotes Ethan Harris over at Lehman Brothers: ‘’Joe Six-Pack [another term for workers used by bourgeois economists] is under a lot of pressure. He got a lousy raise; he’s paying more for gasoline and milk. He’s not doing that great. But proprietor’s income is up [Thank God!]. Profits are up. Home values are up. Middle-income and upper-income people are looking pretty good.’’ Joe Six-Pack also has a death wish because he is flirting with the idea of voting for Bush.

The workers are suffering due to the laws of supply and demand. Our economic system does not see working people as human beings but as objects [hired hands] whose ability to work is bought and sold just as any other commodity on the market. There are still some 1.4 million missing jobs [jobs lost] under President Bush and a big surplus of unemployed workers to keep wages depressed. Porter quotes some other economists who think the low wage factor may still hurt the economy – poor people can’t buy the commodities the capitalists want to sell. The big crunch is out there even if it is not yet on the horizon. The market is being fed by big capitalist profits, tax cuts for the rich – plus the big money made by the upper classes – this money sucks commodities out of the market keeping over-production down – and the poor are spending too, but using credit cards and building up hard to control personal debts.

Mark Zandi opines that ‘’The recovery will likely continue’’ [there has been an up-tick in the market for the rich] ‘’despite the travails of the lower-income households, but it cannot flourish.’’ That means stagnation at some point with the majority of workers never really getting ahead – but that is what capitalism does for you.

The liberal Jared Bernstein told Porter that the working class won’t see wages ‘’at a level closer to that of productivity’’ until we get ‘’truly full employment.’’ That would mean, of course, no industrial reserve army to keep wages low – and that will never happen under capitalism. The quote also reveals another ‘’secret’’ of the capitalist system. It is the ‘’productivity’’ of the working class that ultimately produces all the wealth of capitalist society – and the earnings of the workers will never equal their productivity level. It is that gap, between levels of productivity and wages that is responsible for the wealth of the capitalists – and they will never cease to live off the sweat of others until their class is abolished.
Thomas Riggins is the Book Review editor for Political Affairs magazine.