The great economic power of the U.S. is the product of the labor of countless people in this land and around the world. But while the working people created this wealth, they do not own or control it.
The capitalist system has concentrated the ownership of the tremendous productive forces in the U.S. in the hands of a small group of big capitalists. Today U.S. capitalism is really monopoly capitalism or imperialism. It is marked by a basic contradiction: production is social, involving the coordinated and interconnected labor of millions of workers, but the control of this social labor and its product is private.
Workers are wage slaves who survive only by selling their labor power to the capitalists. Capitalists own the means of production and pay workers for their labor power. But the working class produces far more wealth than it receives in income. The difference is the source of capitalist profits.
The capitalist tries to drive down the wages of the worker, while also trying to rob the worker through high rents, taxes and other costs of living. The worker is employed only as long as he or she helps create profit for the monopolies. When the capitalist has problems maximizing his profits, he does not hesitate to throw workers out into the street. The monopoly capitalist system exploits the working class and creates the poverty and economic insecurity of society as a whole.
Monopoly capitalism is a system of international exploitation – imperialism. The monopolies invest capital abroad, penetrate foreign markets, and plunder the natural resources of developing countries. They also attempt to dominate other countries politically and militarily. Colonialism and neo-colonialism bring enormous profits for the big banks and corporations, and wretched lives for the people of the developing world.
The monopoly capitalist system is a system of economic anarchy and crisis. Monopoly capitalism is plagued by periodic economic crises, such as recessions, which are becoming more serious and complex. These crises are built into the economic system. Each monopoly tries to maximize its profits by pushing production and cutting expenses, especially the pay of workers. Prices tend to go up and wages down. The result is that the monopolies find they cannot sell all that they have produced, and they lay off workers. This only worsens the situation and the economy sinks even further until the monopolists have eliminated their surpluses.
Economic crises are also produced by speculation, hoarding and other schemes of the bankers, financiers and industrialists. Each tries to profit in the short run, but because of this individual greed, the working class and people suffer, and the economy is thrown into turmoil.
The anarchistic system of capitalism wastes a great amount of social wealth. Every year billions are spent by one company to buy up another. Useful products are routinely destroyed to keep prices and profits high. Cattle are killed and crops allowed to rot in the fields. Massive steel plants sit cold as the monopolists decide they can make more money in other ventures. Acres of new cars rust on parking lots because the monopolists create more goods than people can afford to purchase.
Even technological advances often are delayed or even suppressed due to profit considerations. Major advances in the transportation system are blocked by the big auto companies because they have so much invested in their present plants. And when technological innovations such as “industrial robots” are introduced, they are at the expense of workers who are discharged from their jobs.
The result of all this is that the people suffer.
Monopoly capitalism is an obstacle to the further advancement of the material well-being of society. It is unjust, wasteful, irrational and increasingly unproductive. The situation demands a new, more rational system of economic organization that will utilize the productive forces for the benefit of the vast majority of society.
The oppression of the millions of minority nationality people within the boundaries of the U.S. is an integral part of U.S. monopoly capitalism. These nationalities include Afro-Americans, Asians, Chicanos, Hawaiians, Latinos, Native American Indians, Puerto Ricans and others.
The Afro-American Nation in the Black-belt South, the Chicano Nation in the Southwest, and the Hawaiian Nation are dominated by U.S. imperialism. They are nations because they are historically constituted peoples with common territory, language, economic life and culture. They are deprived of the right of self-determination and are suppressed in all spheres of life. The bourgeoisie’s control of the territory, resources and labor of these oppressed nations has been one of the main pillars of U.S. society and is integral to the system of U.S. monopoly capitalism.
Outside of these oppressed nations, all the oppressed nationalities generally live in concentrated communities where they suffer a lower standard of living and many restrictions, and are systematically oppressed as a people. They suffer discrimination in housing, employment and education, and face inequality in a number of ways including the suppression of their languages and cultures. They face various forms of subjugation, such as violent police repression. They have not even been recognized as distinct nationalities.
In addition, the monopolists reap billions of extra dollars from the special exploitation of the masses of the oppressed peoples and the denial of equality and democracy. The minority nationalities suffer greater exploitation, higher unemployment, worse working and living conditions and deeper impoverishment. Their suffering is rooted in a whole system of racism and national oppression (the oppression of a nationality) which is a fundamental feature of the U.S. imperialist system. U.S. imperialism’s very survival rests on national oppression – the economic, political and cultural subjugation of tens of millions of people (25% of the population).
An integral component of the system of national oppression is white chauvinism and racism. This ideology, stemming from the unequal situation of whites and minority peoples, is pervasive in the U.S. and helps justify and perpetuate the brutal system of national oppression. Within the working class many whites act upon incorrect racist beliefs to one degree or another, against their own class interests. Some whites consciously ally with the exploiters and promote actions against workers of other nationalities. But in the final analysis, the vast majority of the working people of all nationalities have no stake in racism and national oppression.
Racist and fascist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis are sponsored and bankrolled by the rich. These and other right-wing paramilitary groups represent the naked and most violent rule of the bourgeoisie. They have traditionally directed their main attacks against Afro-Americans and other minority peoples.
This long history of oppression in the U.S. has given rise to deep sentiments among all the oppressed nationalities for equality and liberation. Their struggles against national oppression strike at the root of the monopoly capitalist system.
Besides workers and oppressed nationalities, millions of others suffer under monopoly capitalism. The monopoly capitalist class benefits from the misery of countless numbers of people.
Women’s oppression is built into monopoly capitalism. Millions of women work, but receive less than 60% for its senior citizens. It squeezes the life out of the worker and then tosses him or her away. Capitalist society also callously mistreats disabled or handicapped people because everything is geared to the drive for profits.
Family farmers and small business people face ruin in the present society. Big businesses are driving the small ones into bankruptcy. Owning a small business brings no security.
Cultural workers, artists and intellectuals face bleak futures, too. Less and less funds are devoted to culture since the monopolists want to invest in only what is immediately profitable. Few cultural workers, artists and intellectuals can concentrate on their interests since they must find other jobs to survive. As a result, the entire cultural life of the country suffers and is corrupted by the worst type of commercialism.
This exploitative and oppressive system, where profit is master, has choked our entire society with economic crises, political reaction and social decay. The drive for profits holds millions hostage to hunger and want; it has poisoned the very air we breathe; it spawns cynicism and violence, drugs, crime and other social problems.
Looming above our heads is the threat of war. The politicians in Washington are carrying out a foreign policy of domination, intervention, bribery and subversion. They define the “national interest” as what is good for U.S. multinational corporations.
U.S. monopolies, especially after World War II, constructed a worldwide empire of exploitation. American companies invested huge amounts of capital in other countries to control their economies and people. The U.S. dominated less powerful capitalist countries, such as those in Europe and Japan. The third world became a key target for plunder. The monopolies extracted tremendous quantities of raw materials from the third world at little expense.
U.S. monopolies became dependent upon the continuation of U.S. domination and plunder of much of the rest of the world. Because of this treatment, millions of people in other countries raised the call, “Yankee go home!”
Washington props up reactionary regimes such as South Africa and south Korea and threatens to invade Central American sovereign nations. It keeps Puerto Rico in colonial bondage. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops and hundreds of military bases overseas aim to make the world “safe” for U.S. imperialism.
Washington spends hundreds of billions of dollars on a war machine whose basic purpose is to extend and protect the empire of monopoly capital. The U.S. nuclear arsenal is already capable of destroying the entire globe several times over. At the same time, this militarism saps the economy of billions of dollars which could be used to meet human needs.
The military might of the U.S. is not for the defense of the people of this country. The U.S. military establishment exists to intimidate and intervene in countries that want to throw off U.S. domination. The U.S. is also in deadly competition for global power with the other superpower, the Soviet Union.
Both superpowers seek to rule the world. From the deepest recesses of the oceans to the far reaches of outer space, the two superpowers compete with one another and threaten to launch World War III.
The Soviet Union was once the world’s first socialist country, but since the mid-1950s has degenerated into an aggressive imperialist power that betrays the principles of socialism. It is ruled by a new military bureaucratic elite that has restored class exploitation and national oppression. The new czars of the Soviet Union hypocritically use the words of communism to try to mask their naked aggression and military occupation of other countries.
The expansion of Soviet imperialism and its competition with U.S. imperialism has created widespread concerns about nuclear war. U.S. imperialism is trying to hold onto its empire, while the Soviets are challenging and even surpassing the U.S. in many areas. The people of the U.S. and the world want an end to the arms race, especially the nuclear threat. Superpower rivalry is the greatest danger to world peace.
The masses of people of the U.S. want peace and do not want military adventures. But as long as the system of U.S. imperialism exists, these threats will continue, since U.S. imperialism is based on world domination and exploitation which inevitably produce tension, intervention and war.
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Exploitation, injustice, racism and national oppression, and the threat of war – this is the face of the U.S. under monopoly capitalism today. The situation cries out for change, for a new, more rational social system – socialism!