The government has signed a bill to give $1,200 to people living in this country. Clearly, there will be many people living here who won’t be getting that money. This is not a blog about who will and who won’t be getting a check.
In all probability the $1,200 will be insufficient to deal with all the expenses that most working people have. So, if we get this check or not, the problem of having the resources to meet our needs will continue to be a pressing issue. This is in spite of the fact that the resources have been available to eliminate poverty for a very long time.
What does the word money mean?
This isn’t a question that we ask ourselves very often. Money is only a means of exchange that can be used to purchase things we need or want. Money, in and of itself, has no value. People don’t eat money, or wear clothes made out of money, or live in houses made of money.
Understanding this, we can ask another question: Why are corporate officers so obsessed with getting large amounts of money? We can begin to answer this question by looking at a bit of history.
Back in the early years of capitalism, individual capitalists formed their own corporations. These capitalists included: Andrew Carnegie, Pierre du Pont, John Rockefeller, and Henry Ford. Then, as those corporations became larger, banks took over the financing of most major corporations.
This means that when we purchase commodities, we are not only contributing to the profits of several corporations. We are also contributing to interest payments that finance these corporations. The problem is that profits and interest contribute absolutely nothing to the production costs of goods and services.
So, corporations and banks need a continuous flow of money in profits and interest in order for them to survive. While these profits and interests benefit the affluent, they adversely affect working people. When corporations gouge out more in profits, workers have less. When workers gain more in wages and benefits, capitalists have less. This is one reason why the standard of living for working people has been deteriorating, while the stock market rocketed to an all-time high.
The Pandemic
Today corporations have responded to the pandemic by creating an unemployment rate of 30%. This means that working people are left to figure out how to survive on our own. However, while many workers are struggling to find ways to feed ourselves, farmers are in the position where they need to destroy vast quantities of food.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote about this in 1848 in their pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto. They argued that in capitalism there is a disease that humanity has never seen before. This is the disease of overproduction.
This explains why food is being destroyed, while many don’t have enough. Commodities aren’t produced to provide for the needs of people. In the capitalist system production is always geared to gouge out profits for the affluent.
Understanding this reality, we can look at the $1,200 check many received from the government from a different perspective. At the same time as the government decided to give us this money, they also gave literally trillions of dollars to corporations. This money benefited some of the most affluent people in the world. Yet, while the affluent have been receiving this money, hospitals are experiencing severe shortages of medical supplies.
I can also add that workers don’t expect the government to recoup losses we accrue at a casino, or when we purchase lottery tickets. We understand that when we lose this money it is gone, and we won’t get it back. However, when corporations lose vast quantities of money because of bets they place on the stock market, they expect to be reimbursed. In fact the government not only gives them trillions of dollars, they give them all that money in a hurry.
So, the $1,200 check is a good example of the limitations of what money represents. A few months ago, receiving a check for $1,200 would have been greeted with joy. Today most workers view that check as grossly inadequate.
What does it cost to produce a commodity?
Today, governments around the world are asking workers to stay at home. Since workers produce all goods and services, I think we need to ask a question that we rarely think about. What are the real production costs of goods and services?
First, we can start with the minerals that emanate from the ground. Some of these include: food, steel, cotton, rubber, coal, oil, and natural gas. These are some of the many materials that are absolutely necessary. Workers are the ones to who take these, and many other materials out of the ground.
Then, those materials need to be refined so they can be used in manufacturing.
Then, those materials are fabricated and assembled to create the goods we all need.
Then, those goods are transported by air, ships, rail, or highways to locations where they can be purchased.
In order to manufacture these commodities, we also need education and health care services.
There is something you might notice from all these industrial and social enterprises. Nowhere do we see the enterprises of banking, insurance, advertising, corporate law, or the military. Although these enterprises aren’t necessary to production, we pay for all those enterprises with literally every commodity we purchase.
We have visual aids in seeing all those enterprises that contribute nothing to the things we need and want. These are the skyscrapers we see in most of the major cities in the world. Goods and useful services are not usually produced by sitting at a desk. Certainly, we need engineers, architects, accountants and many others who are a necessary part of the production process. However, we don’t need insurance companies, banks, advertising agencies, corporate law firms, or corporate boards to produce those commodities. Those are the enterprises housed in most of the skyscrapers in the cities.
So, while improved technology causes production costs to go down, the prices we pay go up. Now, that we are in the midst of a crisis, I believe we need to examine the things we actually need and how they can be produced safely.
How could a worker’s government organize the world without money?
Today, because of the nature of COVID-19, medical experts are asking people to stay at home. If this is the case, then how will everyone get all the things we need?
A worker’s government would create a rational dialogue with the people. Representatives of that government certainly wouldn’t be advising people to inject cleaning fluid to rid ourselves of the virus. That government wouldn’t limit itself to giving people a check for $1,200. The fundamental priority would be to provide everyone in the world with all the things we need.
A rational government would explain that capitalist governments routinely sacrifice human life for profit. While they understood, for years, that the pandemic was a possibility, they invested $1.5 trillion in the F-15 fighter bomber. While thousands of people were dying of COVID-19, they gave corporations trillions of dollars in a bailout package.
So, a rational government would argue that we need to completely change our priorities. They would identify all the services we all need. Then, they would ask for volunteers to do those jobs. Then, they would make it a top priority to provide workers with the best protective equipment, so people would have a safe working environment.
A rational government would argue that we are the working class of the world. We have nothing in common with the capitalists. Therefore, in order to advance our interests, volunteers would work to alleviate the conditions in nations that lack sufficient access to food, electricity, housing, and water.
In order to achieve this, all banks, insurance companies, advertising agencies, and corporations would be immediately confiscated. With those corporations confiscated, there would be no need for them to be bailed out.
Even with all these measures, many would lose their lives to COVID-19. However, with this kind of environment, people would have genuine hope and a common sense of purpose. All the problems associated with staying at home would be addressed. If massive numbers of people were being tested, then we would know where we are with respect to the pandemic every day. With that perspective, we would know how and when we might begin to see the end of the spread of this disease.
Today, when we imagine living in that kind of environment, this might seem like an impossible dream. However, with each passing day, the capitalist system appears to be falling apart. As this happens, more and more workers will see the need for a world based on human needs and not profits. In that kind of world, the needs of everyone will be the priority, and the drive to attain more and more money will appear to be a bad dream from the past.
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