The Truth About Unemployment

David Schweickart explains.

Transcript:

"It's important to understand, you cannot have full employment under capitalism. The threat of unemployment is the disciplinary stick that keeps the workforce in line. Not only is unemployment necessary, but the condition of unemployment must be humiliating enough and miserable enough for the threat to be credible.

Look, in a capitalist enterprise, there's a fundamental contradiction at its heart: owners want to get as much work out of the workers as possible, pay them as little as possible; workers want to get as much income as possible and work as little as possible.

How do you enforce discipline? Well, you can't whip workers anymore, you can't put them into jail, but you can fire them. But for that threat to be credible, that firing has got to have serious consequences. If unemployment is too low, the threat isn't credible. If conditions of unemployment are too nice, the threat isn't credible.

It's built into the structure of capitalism."

From a discussion on Parecon & market socialism, available @ http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8B3C82AC6CD53312

My extraction of this clip shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of Schweickart's entire position, or a rejection of Albert's. It's just a nice concise bite that may come in handy when discussing unemployment under capitalism.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• unemployment
• work
• capitalism
• Schweickart

[72messenger]

Cuba, East Germany, & North Korea didn't fare so well under marxism.

[vktrsx]

I'd hardly call those "Marxist," despite what they may claim.

[torrac2]

destroy capitalism

[JonkyOnTheSpot]

hmmm, does any real business operate under these pretexts? None that I have ever worked for did. From dish washing, to being a govt employee to being private sector, to owning my own company(s).

[Antiks72]

@Capitalocracy Which is exactly what goes on now. The American workers is totally passive and domesticated. I see it everyday when I go to work. And you know what? I am too, because I need money.  It sucks.

[omfg41]

@velketudle You're talking about scarcity of time. We were talking about scarcity of resources and materials.

How can this system be defined as socialism? Explain, please.

[velketudle]

@omfg41: scarcity will always remain. Our bodies and our time here will always be scarce.

"The system is a fucking failure."

Yeah, it is. The system, we now live in - socialism - is an epic fail.

[omfg41]

@velketudle With the technology we have we can drink sewer water, have enough clean energy and eat all the food we want (food scacity in the third world is not due to actual food scarcity but the lack of technology, information, capital and education).

The system is a fucking failure.

[Capitalocracy]

excellent clip. the sad thing is, a lot of people in the U.S., if you told them that a certain level of unemployment under horrible conditions is important to make the threat of being fired bad enough to influence workers and force them to accept certain conditions, they would not only agree, but they wouldn't see a problem with it.

[velketudle]

capitalism? where?