On December 30, our neighbor Robert Ham submitted a letter to the editor calling for “frequent sense” in tax coverage for Connecticut. This piece known as, basically, for reducing taxes on the rich, and was in response to an article by Keith Phaneuf which pointed to growing taxes on the rich as a strategy to make up the state’s $4.three billion funds deficit. The unlucky reality of the matter although is that the issues of the state, the nation, and the world can’t be mounted by something in need of basic adjustments to our financial system.
Connecticut faces a lethal risk from local weather change, the native outcomes of a worldwide capitalist disaster, and an epidemic of inequality made worse by racial oppression. Frequent sense balks at these sorts of points! The means exist to resolve these issues and construct a greater world, however not throughout the capitalist system.
To beat local weather change or repair any of the opposite giant issues dealing with our state we have to change the way in which that our financial system capabilities. Below capitalism, items and companies are supplied based mostly on the revenue motive: funding is made by the banks the place they are going to make a revenue. If it isn’t worthwhile to do, then they gained’t put money into it.
Capitalism places employees into movement to construct enormous factories, run huge logistics networks, and workers huge shops; within the course of, although, each alternative is taken to chop wages and scale back staffing to extend income. This slowly grinds away individuals’s buying energy and shortly will increase corporations’ earnings. Debt piles up because of this, and shocks just like the pandemic inevitably deliver down the financial home of playing cards. The immense financial system now lies dormant till one other upswing, and the employees who ran it are compelled to be idle and undergo the results of poverty.
However why? We now have residences to restore, tidal limitations to erect, and folks to feed, even when the landlords, development corporations and restaurateurs aren’t as much as the duty.
Socialism means democratic management over the financial system if it means something in any respect. From the CEO on down, it’s employees who make the financial system tick, and the shareholders and board members who reap the rewards. We’re already working issues. The Fortune 500 Firms, with 13 Connecticut members, make up two-thirds of U.S. GDP and made $1.1 trillion in income in 2019. If we have been to nationalize these corporations, lots of that are already administered “publicly,” and run them democratically for individuals quite than revenue, we’d be effectively geared up to start out fixing 4 centuries of racial injustice and face a hostile century.
The bankers will make all types of objections, however their system speaks for itself. Staff are already working issues, we simply want to manage them.
To get from right here to there, although, we want a brand new occasion. Working situations and residing requirements go down whereas healthcare prices and income go up irrespective of who sits within the statehouse, inflicting many to take a look at of politics altogether. Why does our multi-millionaire governor share a celebration with the labor unions after they have such opposite agendas? A lot ado is made about “progressive” Democrats, “labor” Democrats, and “Democratic Socialist” Democrats, however why ought to they be a part of a celebration the place the important thing selections are made by huge donors and bureaucrats behind closed doorways?
We want a extremely “democratic” occasion that’s free from company cash and never afraid to battle capitalist property. To not mince phrases, we want a revolutionary occasion. The Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns and the George Floyd rebellion blew the lid off of American politics and confirmed anybody who can see that the employees and youth have huge untapped political vitality. The unions have the assets and group hyperlinks to get such a celebration off the bottom and reverse a 50-year decline within the course of. The trail in entrance of Connecticut is obvious: both we let our issues proceed to fester within the outdated political and financial system or we make a break with the established order for a greater world!
Eric Goodman is a resident Hamden.
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