Arguments for socialism: Unemployment
A grotesque number of workers — 1 billion — are unemployed or underemployed worldwide, according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This one statistic reveals absolutely that capitalism cannot solve the jobs crisis that is strangling working people around the world.
That statistic also debunks any suggestion that the Coalition or Labor Party can solve the unemployment problem in Australia.
The Coalition has no program for solving unemployment and the ALP has merely a target, not even a promise. According to ALP leader Kim Beazley, the target (5% within two terms) has only "half a chance of success". In reality, it has almost no chance.
According to the ILO's World Employment Report 1998-99, released on September 24, of the 1 billion workers who are unemployed or underemployed (a third of the world's workforce), 150 million are unemployed. And this even before the looming world recession hits — as one commentator said, "it is going to get worse before it gets worse".
This year, 10 million workers have been added to the stockpile of the unemployed, mainly due to the Asian economic crisis. Ten million workers — more than half of Australia's total population — would fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground 100 times over.
When unemployed workers discouraged from looking for work and those who are working only a few hours a week but want to work more are added to the official figure, the number of unemployed jumps to around 600 million workers. In Australia, the official rate of unemployment is 8.2%, but the real rate is close to 18%.
In many countries, the steady rise in unemployment has been accompanied by a steady drop in real wages. This makes a lie of PM John Howard's suggestion in 1997 that lower wages lead to more jobs.
In Indonesia, according to the ILO report, real wages are expected to decline by an average of more than 15% this year. In Russia, real wages, when they get paid at all, have crashed to at most 60% of their 1989 levels.
With this decline, buying staples like rice or grains can be difficult, and purchasing other foodstuffs, clothes or leisure activities can be impossible.
Close to 1 billion people on the planet already go hungry. The poorest of the world's poor get no more nutrition than the Nazi's prisoners in Auschwitz received.
A focus on statistics can dull the senses and de-humanise people. But the human costs of unemployment are felt widely. Poverty, despair, suicide, mental illness and early death are all part of the lot of unemployed people.
It is becoming abundantly clear that no capitalist government in the world has the will to solve this social catastrophe. Enforced unemployment, once considered an abuse of a person's human rights, has been redefined by capitalist politicians as normal, or at least inevitable. Increasingly, it is the victims of unemployment, not those who cause it, who are blamed for the problem.
No government can solve structural unemployment because no government can plan and control the economy. Capitalism is all about maximising profits, not maximising jobs and those who make the economic decisions are the corporate bosses, not their servants in parliament.
The politicians' promise of a trickle down effect — from greater corporate profits to more new jobs — is no more than capitalist propaganda to encourage us to accept neo-liberalism.
In fact, as more working people have less income, less products are sold and companies' profitability is reduced. This exerts more pressure on those companies to increase their competitiveness by lowering their costs through investing in more labour-saving technology and cutting wages. Thus, more jobs are destroyed, workers' disposable income is cut further and the spiral continues downward.
The capitalist system is inherently unable to deliver economic security and a decent standard of living for the majority of humanity. It must, therefore, be dismantled and replaced with one that can.
The question of what type of economic system is needed lies at the centre of the question of how to solve unemployment. For if the majority of the population controlled production and made the decisions about how many workers are hired, where the profits should go and what role technology should play in production, not only could unemployment be eradicated immediately, but the security of all working people would be guaranteed by this fullest of democracy.
By James Vassilopoulos
[James Vassilopoulos is a national committee member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]