While the Obama Administration babbles about a supposed “economic recovery” over 33 million U.S. workers are still looking for non-existent jobs. There is only one job for every six jobless workers. The unemployment rate is really 21.6% according to ShadowStats.org which includes short- and long-term discouraged workers and underemployed workers, dwarfing the “official” 9.5% unemployment rate.

Many economists are calling this current “above-normal” level of unemployment the “new normal.” The Atlantic’s Don Peck says this could be the beginning of a “lost decade.” It will fundamentally transform a whole generation, as families fall apart, neighborhoods fall into turmoil and young workers see their lifespan significantly shortened due to the effects of continuous unemployment.

With over 8.4 million jobs lost in this economic depression, it’s become increasingly clear that recovery for many workers will be impossible. In order to provide jobs for the 1.5 million people joining the labor force each year and to return to the “normal” 5% unemployment rate in five years, the economy would have to create 250,000 jobs a month.

Then, to reach a “recovery” in two years that jumps to over 600,000 new jobs every month. In the last 20 years there has not been one monthly average job growth of 250,000. In fact, since 1989 the average has been 91,000 a month, far short of what capitalism needs for a “normal” recovery.

Now, as of July 30, 108 banks have failed this year alone, a pace exceeding the 140 bank failures in 2009. The collapse of the housing market is actually accelerating, with a record one million home foreclosures predicted for 2010. Bank of America hopes to be able to foreclose on 45,000 homes per month by December. And consumer spending, which accounts for 70% of total economic activity, continues to fall far short of expectations.

In short, the “recovery myth” is a political cover for an economic depression that is continually worsening. The current crisis U.S. unemployment levels are unlikely to ever decline, and may very well increase in coming years.

Workers Sped Up, Earn Less; Bosses Sit On $1.8 Trillion

The fear of unemployment and layoffs has allowed U.S. companies to speed up workers while cutting pay. Today workers are working 10% fewer hours while production remains at pre-cutback levels. This means they’re working a lot harder for a lot less. Consequently non-financial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion and are still refusing to hire new workers.

The NY Times praised German “recovery,” quoting a German economist that, “Fear of unemployment made workers more willing to accept concessions.” By “resisting a rise in wages” German capitalists have profited handsomely, a victory for capitalism says the Times.

But the unemployment lifting capitalist profits is deadly for workers. The average life-span of a worker losing a job at 30 is reduced by 1½ years when compared with those who’ve never lost their job. As CHALLENGE has repeatedly noted from a 1971 Congressional report, a 1.4% rise in unemployment leads to 30,000 deaths over the following five years. A 3% increase in unemployment raises the suicide rate by 4.5%.

The racism that causes black and Latino workers to be the first fired and last hired makes them especially vulnerable to deadly unemployment. Black and Latino workers suffer unemployment rates twice that of white workers. This is a direct result of racist hiring practices designed to keep workers’ divided and wages down.

Capitalists Unconcerned With Recovery for Workers

When economists talk about returning unemployment rates to the “normal” 5%, that means still over eight million workers on the streets! Capitalists are incapable of providing full employment. Only communism can transform work from a mechanism for the profit of the few into a liberating force for the world’s working class.

For capitalists, workers’ lives are always secondary to profits. To escape the evils of unemployment and its deadly side effects, the whole capitalist system must be destroyed. This begins with fighting the bosses’ plan to build their recovery on the backs of the working class. Employed and unemployed workers must unite to fight layoffs, evictions and foreclosures and racist bosses’ imperialist wars. Ultimately unemployed workers, as all workers, must be won to join PLP and organize to replace the profit system with a communist society free of bosses, profits, racism and war. J

On October 2, Reject The Bosses Elections and Fight for Communist Revolution

Under the guise of launching a movement for jobs, the agents of the  Rockefeller wing of the capitalist ruling class in the mass movement are organizing a mass demonstration on October 2 in Washington, D.C. to channel workers’ anger into working for Democratic Party candidates in the upcoming Congressional elections. Its goal: keep workers’ anger against racist unemployment under the tight control of the union misleaders and the NAACP and slap down the bosses’ rivals in the racist Tea Party.

We must not think that the Rockefeller-led bosses are “lesser evils” compared to the Tea Party fascists. Actually, the Rockefeller wing, which tends to look towards the longer-term interests of the imperialist system as a whole, will strengthen its ability to impose fascism and wage wars far better than the amateur fascists in the Tea Party.

Initiated by Local 1199 of the SEIU and the NAACP, the October 2 “March for Jobs, Justice, and Peace” has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO leadership, possibly ensuring a massive turnout. The build-up to this event is an important opportunity for PL’s revolutionary communists to deepen their ties in the mass organizations being recruited for this demonstration. We will expose the bosses and their agents in the workers’ movement and fight for a revolutionary path instead of an electoral one.

The fight against racist unemployment must be a priority for revolutionaries. We should never side with one group of bosses against another — they will always serve their own interests, not ours. The current economic crisis has demonstrated yet again that capitalism can never serve us, and must be destroyed by communist revolution so that we workers can organize society to meet the needs of our class on an international basis. Join us on October 2 to expose the misleaders and build for workers’ revolution worldwide!

Harriet Rosen, a life-long supporter of PLP from its earliest days, died on August 8 at 86. She was married to Milt Rosen, one of the original organizers of our Party. Her son sent the following remembrance to CHALLENGE.

I want to thank the Party for the huge help you’ve all given me since I moved my parents to Los Angeles in 2004. This support really shows the true meaning of what it means to be a comrade. Only the working class can care for each other like this; the bosses would rather suck us dry and then leave us to die once we’re no longer profitable to them.

My mom and dad were married in 1946; he was 20, she 22. My dad became active in communist politics right after the war; my mom had left leanings. One night, she and a girlfriend decided to attend a left-wing political meeting “to look for interesting men.” My dad gave a speech at the meeting and she was obviously impressed. She was then dating Harry Bulova, heir to the Bulova Watch fortune. But my mother gave up a possible life of wealth to marry a guy dedicated to overthrowing the capitalist class.

After they were married, they lived in Brooklyn for a while. Then the Communist Party sent my dad to Buffalo, NY, to organize in factories there. Times were hard; I recall eating a lot of army surplus cheese. I do remember they made many friends in Buffalo, becoming very close to Morty and Phyllis Scheer, Helen and Teddy Schwartz and Paul and Jo Sporn. There were many others but these are the ones I recall because I was friendly with their children. My parents stayed life-long friends with these three couples and, as you know, my dad went on to form PL with these people.

My mom loved to entertain. She always had many people over and was always cooking. She was a great cook and got pleasure from preparing food for friends. She always prepared holiday feasts, filling the house with friends and relatives. When she was young, her family was very poor and at times went hungry. I believe this is one reason she enjoyed cooking these delicious meals. She was extremely hospitable. We always had people staying at our house.

My mom came from a dirt-poor family. Her
father was a pharmacist who gave medications away for free to poor people. She had one sister and two brothers. Her fondest childhood memories were of the family going to Rockaway Beach in the spring when it was still deserted and staying through the summer in a rented bungalow (more like a dilapidated shack).

Later, when my parents moved back from Buffalo to NYC (I was five and my sister was an infant), they had no place to stay so we headed right out to Rockaway and rented a cheap bungalow. Returning to Rockaway had huge sentimental value for Harriet because of her childhood memories. I think she liked the desolate nature of the beach and the camaraderie she felt with other friends who were renting there.

It was rough because it was deserted in the spring and my dad was away a lot, organizing PL. But my mom hung in there, supporting him while he built the Party. We returned every summer to Rockaway for at least eight years. I can recall many people staying with us and my mom always cooking and being extremely supportive of the folks visiting us there where my dad had many meetings.

My mom loved the Atlantic Coast. She grew up along the water and later my parents would often vacation with their friends at Montauk. When she’d visit me in LA, she’d always go on about how she preferred the Atlantic Coast because the beaches were wider and the landscape more rugged with dunes, etc.

My mom was the quintessential New Yorker. Few people knew she was a double Math/Physics major at Brooklyn College in the early 1940’s. There weren’t many women taking those subjects then (I believe she was the first such female, double major at BC). Unfortunately, her mom made her drop out of college to go to work.

For many years she was a salesgirl at woman’s clothing stores in Manhattan and also a millinery buyer. When my sister and I were older, she returned to college and got a degree in Art History from Brooklyn College and a Master’s in Library Science from Pratt Institute. For many years she worked as a librarian at the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library where she became close friends with many of her co-workers.

She was a very loving mother, always helping me with my problems in school. I often got into trouble and she always took my side. When Sam Scheer and I were hit by a car in Cape Cod, Mass., she was the one comforting us on the plane when they flew us back to NYC. While we were in the hospital for five months, she took the train almost daily from Brooklyn up to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

My mom was a great person. She was smart, kind and very supportive of the struggle to build a world where all people are respected and treated with dignity. She loved cooking, art and was expert in doing the NY Times crossword puzzle (except the sports questions…the only ones I knew).

She loved to take us to the museum (albeit, my dad and I would sometimes give her a hard time about the modern art). She liked Picasso, partly because of his left-wing views. She had a great sense of humor and loved old Italian movies like “The Bicycle Thief” as well as some of the Italian comedies. She was also a caring grandmother to my sister’s kids and my daughter. I’m glad she was able to spend so much time at my sister’s place watching her grandkids grow up.

It was very sad for me to watch her mind whither away. The diseases which proliferate unchecked in this society are horrible. We’re forced to watch our loved ones die of illnesses that could be cured or at least dealt with more humanely, if we had a society that truly cared for people, not profits.

I’ll always remember my mom as a kind, generous and supportive person. Thanks again to the Party for all your help. 

Lena Minkovskaya Caref was born on October 10, 1925 in Gomel, Belarus, the Soviet Union. She considered herself one of “Stalin’s children,” because as she often stated, “When I was growing up there was no crime, school was free, medical care was free, transportation was free, food was cheap, and people were all very happy with each other even if they had to work hard for what they had.” She remained a fervent communist her entire life.

 At the age of 11, she lost her mother and helped her father care for her younger brothers. At 15 she joined the defense against the western-sponsored German fascist invasion. She was first a welder’s helper building an oil pipeline in Georgia and then worked in a hand grenade factory in Belarus. After the war, she and her husband Jacob left the Soviet Union for Poland, where they learned that his entire family was murdered by the Nazis, most in the gas ovens of Auschwitz. Leaving behind her beloved Soviet Union, she and Jacob made their way to a displaced person’s camp in Marktredwitz, Germany where her oldest son was born.

Lena moved to Chicago in March 1949 after many attempts to leave Germany – the U.S. government limited Jewish immigration until forced to change by world pressure. Lena worked in many different jobs as a drill press operator at Bell and Howell and an LPN in hospitals and nursing homes. She joined, led and fought in many protests against the Viet Nam war and racism and within her residence.

As a loving grandmother, she cared for her four children, ten grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. 

The question of slavery reparations requires a communist analysis of capitalism, slavery, racism, and imperialism.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates has shown that he remains committed to being a dishonest apologist for racism. Gates published an op-ed article in The New York Times (4/23/10) titled “Ending the Slavery Blame-Game.” He argued that African leaders entered into what he calls “complex business partnerships” with European slave traders.

Thus, Pres. Obama, “the child of an African and an American…is uniquely positioned to attribute responsibility and culpability…to white people and black people on both sides of the Atlantic,” so that the “divisive” issue of slavery reparations can be settled.  What Gates is suggesting — without being honest enough to come right out and say it — is that President Obama should bring African and American leaders together at the White House — as Obama did with Gates and officer Crowley who arrested him — so they can put the question of slavery reparations behind them.

Both Gates and Obama have a history of blaming Africans for past slavery and present poverty and exploitation.  Back in 1999, Gates produced a Public Television series, “Wonders of the African World.” He emphasized the role of Arabs in the
African slave trade, while glossing over the role of European and American slave traders. He avoided any serious discussion of the devastating nature and impact of colonialism and imperialism in Africa.

Similarly, Obama, speaking in Ghana in July 2009, lectured Africans to stop using slavery and colonialism as “excuses” for their lack of “good governance” today. Obama delivered this hypocritical message as his administration supports corrupt undemocratic governments, expands the U.S. military presence through Africom (the Pentagon military command for Africa), and escalates wars in Central Africa and the Horn of Africa.

Obama delivers similar lectures to African American workers, parents, and schoolchildren. He insists that they have no excuses for failing to get ahead, despite racist cuts in school budgets, massive unemployment, and mass incarceration.

What Gates is trying to do by writing about the complicity of African leaders in the slave trade is to exaggerate it and thereby imply that it is comparable to the role of European and American slave traders.  This is an old lie that has been pushed for the obvious purpose of diverting attention from the main perpetrators onto the minor collaborators.  Moreover, the fact that there were Jewish collaborators with the Nazis has not prevented large-scale reparations to Jewish groups.

Gates also dishonestly downplays the American responsibility for slavery. Columbia University historian Eric Foner, in a letter to the Times (4/25/10), pointed out that “the great growth of slavery in this country occurred after the closing of the Atlantic slave trade in 1808…It was Americans, not Africans, who created in the South the largest, most powerful slave system the modern world has known, a system whose profits accrued not only to slaveholders but also to factory owners and merchants in the North.

Africans had nothing to do with the slave trade within the United States, in which an estimated two million men, women and children were sold between 1820 and 1860.  Identifying Africa’s part in the history of slavery does not negate Americans’ responsibility to confront the institution’s central role in our own history.”

W.E.B. Du Bois, in “The World and Africa,” (1940), noted “it was Karl Marx who made the great unanswerable charge of the sources of capitalism in African slavery.” Marx described how capitalism emerged through a bloody process of genocide, slavery, and colonial conquest which divided the world into a small class who possessed great wealth and a large class of proletarians robbed of everything they had except their own labor power. Capitalism arrived, Marx wrote, “dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt.”

Communists understand that the crime of slavery was embedded in the larger crime of the rise of the global system of capitalism itself.  Enslavement, conquest, and genocide carried out by European capitalists against the populations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas required the development and systematic establishment of a racist structure and ideology wherever capitalism spread. From chattel slavery capitalists developed colonial slavery and wage slavery and exploitation of the working class.  Each kind of slavery requires intense racism.

Gates suggests that reparations would be a one-sided punishment on whites that overlooks the shared responsibility of blacks. But the actual problem with reparations is that they are a vastly inadequate punishment or remedy for the crimes of slavery and racism.

First, these crimes did not end either in the U.S. or in Africa with the abolition of chattel slavery. In the U.S. these crimes persisted for another century as racist super-exploitation under Jim Crow segregation. They persist in the present period as what Michelle Alexander — in a recent book — calls “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” There are more blacks in prison today than at any time under Jim Crow.  It is now legal to discriminate against blacks who have a criminal record in jobs, housing, education, and any government assistance program.

A 2008 report by United for a Fair Economy estimated that from 1998 to 2006 (before the sub-prime crisis), blacks lost $71 billion to $93 billion in home-value wealth from sub-prime loans. That was before the worst of the housing crisis and wave of evictions disproportionately hit black homeowners.  Similarly, in Africa, the slave trade was followed by colonialism and post-colonial imperialism, which have killed more African workers and yielded greater capitalist profits than slavery did.

Second, reparations are supposed to be an act of repair based on some genuine regret for previous harm done.  Capitalists who continue to profit from racist exploitation, debt slavery, mass murder in imperialist wars, plunder of resources, and environmental destruction are incapable of repairing the world and incapable of meaningful regret. We should not spread the illusion that capitalists will ever be capable of making things right for their victims.

Reparations for slavery in the U.S. — in the unlikely event it ever happened — would be used to further consolidate the position of black capitalists, politicians, and administrators as members of the U.S. ruling class.  It would produce more of the same results the Obama presidency has thus far produced. That is, it would confuse and pacify sections of the black working class, while continuing imperialist wars in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Reparations would continue mass incarceration of African Americans, racist detentions and deportations of immigrant workers, trillion dollar bailouts of bankers, insurance, and pharmaceutical, and hospital companies, massive loss of jobs, housing, education, and health care for workers, and environmental destruction that threatens the lives of billions of people all over the planet. 

Third, it is not just capitalist individuals, companies, or countries that are responsible for slavery, genocide, super-exploitation, imperialist wars, and global warming.  It is the global system of capitalism as a whole. Whatever bi-racial reparations formula Gates and Obama might try to sell as appropriate for the crimes of Western and African slave traders, workers must not allow the capitalist system to be let off so lightly.  Capitalism deserves the death penalty.  The working class must destroy the capitalist system.  Only under communism will workers be able to repair the world for all the people who live in it.