Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts

Sunday, July 05, 2009

From The Archives (2009)-Capitalist America- Give Youth Work, Or Move On Over!

Click On To Title To Link To The Leon Trotsky Archives For 1938 Under The Transitional Program Concerning A Sliding Scale Of Wages (Popularly Known As "30 For 40")As An Example Of The Way To Address The Problem Di cussed Below.

Commentary

Make no mistake this site, as a general proposition, is fiercely and relentlessly dedicated to the propaganda struggle for a socialist future. But sometimes we have to agitate for some immediate and pressing needs. In this case the need to make sure the youth, and particularly minority youth, has meaningful work. In a society that goes on something of a principle of ‘last hired and first fired ‘(except when it is cheaper to keep the new labor) in its labor practices this latest capitalist recession is hitting the youth disproportionately.

That said, I recently heard an interesting, if disturbing, program on National Public Radio’s “Talk Of The Town” where the subject was PBS “Dateline’s” upcoming program, hosted by Judy Woodruff, concerning the various ways today’s 20-somethings are coping with (or not coping with) this, for them, first serious economic downturn. I heard plenty of anecdotal evidence for why this capitalist really has outlived its usefulness and must be replaced. But that is a subject for another day and one can go elsewhere in this space for various commentaries on the general socialist program. What I want to do is make a few points on the struggle of today’s youth for jobs.

Hey, when those of us who are not 20-something were young and carefree we all, or most of us anyhow, had our share of makeshift jobs in order to survive or to keep us off the streets. Some of us, including this writer, almost made a religion out of keeping just this side of “skid row”. Being footloose and fancy free is a youthful rite of passage, after all (and probably would be more so under a socialist regime). That, however, is not what the callers to this talk show were addressing as they related their stories. What they had to say about their survival skills reflects very well one their individual abilities to adjust to a world that they certainly have not made. They are making career changes, taking odd-ball jobs, retuning home to live in order to cut down on expenses and even that old chestnut, going back to school to ‘reinvent’ themselves.

Okay, that is the good part. But here is where I want to reflect on what the irrationality of the capitalist system has begot. From what I heard there is an incredible amount of social value stored up in today’s youth. Moreover, an incredible amount of social capital has been used to produce these very high priced future contributors to society. No rational society could, or would let this go to waste in the way that it seems to be doing in the current crisis. Wouldn’t a slogan like “30 For 40”, the old radical labor movement idea of redistributing the available work among those , employed and unemployed, hat need it with no loss in pay be just about right at this time. As for the future, to all those young callers-in I will tell you right now that a socialist society would certainly know how to use your skills- “to the max”. Join us in that fight.

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From The Transistional Program

Sliding Scale of Wages
and Sliding Scale of Hours


Under the conditions of disintegrating capitalism, the masses continue to live the meagerized life of the oppressed, threatened now more than at any other time with the danger of being cast into the pit of pauperism. They must defend their mouthful of bread, if they cannot increase or better it. There is neither the need nor the opportunity to enumerate here those separate, partial demands which time and again arise on the basis of concrete circumstances – national, local, trade union. But two basic economic afflictions, in which is summarized the increasing absurdity of the capitalist system, that is, unemployment and high prices, demand generalized slogans and methods of struggle.

The Fourth International declares uncompromising war on the politics of the capitalists which, to a considerable degree, like the politics of their agents, the reformists, aims to place the whole burden of militarism, the crisis, the disorganization of the monetary system and all other scourges stemming from capitalism’s death agony upon the backs of the toilers. The Fourth International demands employment and decent living conditions for all.

Neither monetary inflation nor stabilization can serve as slogans for the proletariat because these are but two ends of the same stick. Against a bounding rise in prices, which with the approach of war will assume an ever more unbridled character, one can fight only under the slogan of a sliding scale of wages. This means that collective agreements should assure an automatic rise in wages in relation to the increase in price of consumer goods.

Under the menace of its own disintegration, the proletariat cannot permit the transformation of an increasing section of the workers into chronically unemployed paupers, living off the slops of a crumbling society. The right to employment is the only serious right left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is left to the worker in a society based upon exploitation. This right today is being shorn from him at every step. Against unemployment, “structural” as well as “conjunctural,” the time is ripe to advance along with the slogan of public works, the slogan of a sliding scale of working hours. Trade unions and other mass organizations should bind the workers and the unemployed together in the solidarity of mutual responsibility. On this basis all the work on hand would then be divided among all existing workers in accordance with how the extent of the working week is defined. The average wage of every worker remains the same as it was under the old working week. Wages, under a strictly guaranteed minimum, would follow the movement of prices. It is impossible to accept any other program for the present catastrophic period.

Property owners and their lawyers will prove the “unrealizability” of these demands. Smaller, especially ruined capitalists, in addition will refer to their account ledgers. The workers categorically denounce such conclusions and references. The question is not one of a “normal” collision between opposing material interests. The question is one of guarding the proletariat from decay, demoralization and ruin. The question is one of life or death of the only creative and progressive class, and by that token of the future of mankind. If capitalism is incapable of satisfying the demands inevitably arising from the calamities generated by itself, then let it perish. “Realizability” or “unrealizability” is in the given instance a question of the relationship of forces, which can be decided only by the struggle. By means of this struggle, no matter what immediate practical successes may be, the workers will best come to understand the necessity of liquidating capitalist slavery.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

*"Hard Times Come Again No More"- The Songs Of The "First Wave" Great Depression Of The 1930's- In Honor Of "Apple Annie" and "Pencil Slim"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Kate And Anna McGarrigle, Friends And Family Performing Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More".

CD REVIEWS

Hard Times Come Again No More: Early American Rural Songs Of Hard Times And Hardships, various artists, Volumes One and Two, Yazoo Records, 1998

This review covers both volumes of this two-part CD set.


Yes, I am aware that the 1930’s Great Depression was not the first depression that this country had faced but it was the first in which the United States, as a world power anointed by its successes in World War I, created worldwide economic chaos in its wake. However we will leave aside economic history and concentrate on today’s impeding great depression, as the daily news most painfully reminds us seems to be coming. Today I want to discuss what to do about that eventually in the short haul. Obviously, in the long haul we have to fight for a more rational system based on production (and distribution) for need, not for profit. In the meantime what are all of our fellow unemployed to do- right now! Well, now we do have to look back at history, and at least with a little tongue-in-cheek. Back in the 1930’s its seems that on every corner of every town and village one found an “Apple Annie” selling her apples for a nickel to survive or a “Pencil Slim” hawking his pencils for spare change. Tough times indeed. And to while away that long lonely, sometimes empty-handed, vigil many times they sang songs to get attention.

This brings us to the two volume CD set under review that contains some forty-six songs, almost solely from the rural southern part of the United States. The set features themes of hard times, harder times and then the merely desperate ones. For poor blacks and whites alike. The milieu covered in this set appears to be away from the Mississippi Delta that created the country blues and rather are songs from places like Arkansas (that takes a beating in a couple of songs here that will not sit well with Chamber of Commerce-types), North Carolina and Georgia. The jobs, or lack of jobs complained of, run from small unsuccessful tenant farming and sharecropping fighting off the boll weevil and, as several songs make clear, the Boll Weevil landlord or his agents to cheap labor in the textile mills. The instruments used, to my ear, include simple guitar (especially whatever odd-stringed one , as usual, Joe Williams has concocted on “Providence Helps The Poor People”), fiddles galore (a staple of country music and a real plus when, as here, some of the vocals, are reedy), mandolin, washboard, harmonica and whatever else could make noise cheaply with what was at hand.

Clearly with forty- six songs to choose from the quality, even on a Yazoo production that prides itself on both inclusiveness and getting the best sounds possible (and excellent liner notes as well), is uneven. However the following stand out here; obviously the Joe Williams tune mentioned above; Sleepy John Estes on “Down South Blues”; Blind Blake on “No Dough Blues”; Blind Lemon Jefferson on the classic “One Dime Blues” (if you could have put his voice together with Etta Baker’s guitar version you would have an incredible sound on that one); Mississippi John Hurt on “Blue Harvest Blues”; and The Graham Brothers on the title track “Hard Times Come Again No More” (an old Stephen Foster tune from the 1840’s so there is nothing new about hard times).

All of those names above have been mentioned before in this space and reflect their then emergence as country performers. However there is a second layer of performers here that intrigue me and bear further listening. Of that group The Bentley Boys on the now well-known “Down On Penny’s Farm” sticks out (a song, by the way, that Bob Dylan used as an idea for his early “Talking New York Blues”). Another is Blind Alfred Reed on “How Can A Poor Man Stand” as is the great guitarist Barbecue Bob on “We Sure Got Hard Times”. There are not many women on these CDs but Samantha Bumgarner is fine on “Georgia Blues”. The real sleeper on this whole compilation however is Elder Curry & His Congregation whooping it up on a gospelly “Hard Times”. Okay, so now you have the songs that you can sing on those lonely street corners. Now all you need is some apples or pencils. Hard times come again no more, indeed.

HOW CAN A POOR MAN STAND SUCH TIMES AND LIVE ?

Blind Alfred Reed - 1929


There once was a time when everything was cheap,
But now prices nearly puts a man to sleep.
When we pay our grocery bill,
We just feel like making our will --
I remember when dry goods were cheap as dirt,
We could take two bits and buy a dandy shirt.
Now we pay three bucks or more,
Maybe get a shirt that another man wore --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?
Well, I used to trade with a man by the name of Gray,
Flour was fifty cents for a twenty-four pound bag.
Now it's a dollar and a half beside,
Just like a-skinning off a flea for the hide --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, the schools we have today ain't worth a cent,
But they see to it that every child is sent.
If we don't send everyday,
We have a heavy fine to pay --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Prohibition's good if 'tis conducted right,
There's no sense in shooting a man 'til he shows flight.
Officers kill without a cause,
They complain about funny laws --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Most all preachers preach for gold and not for souls,
That's what keeps a poor man always in a hole.
We can hardly get our breath,
Taxed and schooled and preached to death --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Oh, it's time for every man to be awake,
We pay fifty cents a pound when we ask for steak.
When we get our package home,
A little wad of paper with gristle and a bone --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Well, the doctor comes around with a face all bright,
And he says in a little while you'll be all right.
All he gives is a humbug pill,
A dose of dope and a great big bill --
Tell me how can a poor man stand such times and live?

Hard Times Come Again No More

(Stephen Collins Foster)


Let us pause in life's pleasures and count it's many tears
While we all sup sorrow with the poor
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh, hard times come again no more

Chorus
'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary
Hard times, hard times come again no more
Many days you have lingered
Around my cabin door
Oh hard times come again no more

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say;
Oh, hard times come again no more

Chorus

There's a pale sorrowed maiden who toils her life away
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day
Oh, hard times come again no more

Chorus

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave
Oh, hard times come again no more

Chorus