Jackson campaign: Detour for struggles of workers and Blacks

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... Jesse Jackson has to make this racist, anti-working class party SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1987 3 On Oct. 10, 1987, the Rev. Jesse Jackson will announce his candidacy for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. He is the "unofficial" leader in all Democratic Party polls. His emergence on the political scene is based on an excellent ability to win support from the oppressed and poor of America.

By holding out the promises of social justice, peace and jobs, help for farmers, and an end to racism, Jackson is appealing to a strong desire for social change among workers, oppressed minorities, women, and students.

However, to be an acceptable candidate for the Democratic Party, Jackson is already trying to appear as a moderate, center-ofthe-road, "responsible" politician who can represent "everyone's" interests. [See August 1987 issue of Socialist Action.] Jackson is already on record as being committed to win votes for whomever the Democratic Party nominee may turn out to be. He has also indicated he would be very happy to run as a vice-presidential candidate. His real goal, however, is to win a place for himself as a broker who can deliver the votes of the most exploited layers of society in exchange for a place for himself within the capitalist power structure.

When Jackson says, "We'll fight together as Democrats," he's indicating his loyalty...and his political limitations. For Jackson, the stability of the profit system and its political structure comes first!

But the profit system is entering a period of deep crisis. The employing class is increasingly forced to take back concessions granted in more prosperous days to an aroused and mobilized working class.

Any gains to be made by working people and the oppressed in the coming period will necessarily be at the expense of capitalist stability, and thus, wrenched away by methods of class struggle.

Those who place their hopes in Jackson finding a compromise between the interests of the exploiters and themselves are doomed to disappointment, disorientation, and demoralization.

Economic assault on Blacks The social base of the Jackson campaign is the Black community. Blacks have been the hardest hit by cutbacks, unemployment, plant closings, and the lack of social services.

In the last six years, under the Reagan administration, the situation for Blacks has worsened. Blacks are currently faced with the same economic conditions they confronted in 1960. This economic and political backdrop is the main reason for Jackson's meteoric rise in the electoral arena.

For Jackson to successfully steer this political ferment into the Democratic Party, he has to make this racist, anti-working class party look good. Pointing to the indisputably horrible record of the Reagan years, Jackson will use this frightening alternative as a whip to win votes for Democrats, who in reality share full responsibility by their support of Reagan's programs in Congress.

Worse still, Jackson will begin to make concessions on his still vague program for social justice. The victims of these "compromises" will be the people who can least afford them: the people who gave Jackson his head of steam, the Black community.

State of Black America The 1987 edition of "The State of Black America," published by the National Urban League, Inc., gives a devastating account of the increase in poverty and unemployment in the Black community during the Reagan years.

The gap between Black and white income has widened; the per-capita income of Blacks has decreased; impoverished Black families are more numerous and poorer; and over 50 percent of Black children now live below the poverty line.

But a careful examination of the statistics, representing unbelievable misery and despair multiplied millions of times, are not very flattering for the Democrats either. During the years preceding the Reagan administration, when Democrat Jimmy Carter was president, the trend of deterioration of already bad social conditions for Blacks was well in progress.

In a well-researched contribution to the Urban League report, professor of economics David H. Swinton prefaces his statistical presentation with an evaluation of the years preceding Reagan.

Professor Swinton states: " At the start of the Reagan administration, the economic status of Blacks reflected a high level of economic problems and was still very unequal. Although modest progress had been made in reducing some of these problems since the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, the pace of progress was slowing down [my emphasis-J.R.] in the few years preceding the Reagan administration. Indeed, there already existed widespread dissatisfaction...at the slow rate of progress."

Based on figures from the Bureau of Census up to 1985, professor Swinton look good."

shows that while conditions have worsened, not really much has fundamentally changed. During the five Reagan years the average per-capita income for Blacks was $6319, which was 57.2 percent of the average income for whites.

In the late '70s Blacks earned 58.8 percent of the income that whites earned. This difference of 1.6 percent indicates that racial inequality in per-capita income has clearly increased during the Reagan administration.

In terms of family income, the disparity between Black and white income is even more illustrative.

In the five years preceding Reagan, the Black family earned 58.1 cents for every dollar white families earned. During the years 1980-1985 this gap widened to 56.7 cents. During the Reagan years the average Black family lost $1349 in income each year when compared to the five preceding years.

Significantly, while the poverty rate for Blacks has remained high (31.3 percent), the white poverty rate has increased to 11.4 percent, which is higher than the rates for 1980 and 1970 (10.2 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively.)

But while it is undoubtedly true that poverty, unemployment, and racism have increased under Reagan, the norm throughout the years, plus or minus a couple of percentage points, is that Blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed; will earn little more than half of what whites earn; and are three times more likely to live below the poverty line.

Reagan's service to capitalism is that he has buried the knife a little deeper, but not without the help of the Democrats.

The rich get richer The Rev. Jackson, the Rainbow Coalition, and other reformers believe that what's needed is only a change of policy. But policies are not based on good or ill will. The policies of the capitalist class—as personified by both the Democrats and Republicans-are based on the sanctity of profit.

For example, the Urban League estimates that the total income denied to Blacks through unequal wages, unemployment (lost time), and lower incomes for Black women, amounts to over $60 billion yearly. These unpaid wages go right into the coffers of the capitalist class.

Furthermore, the effect this unequal income distribution has on depressing wages and benefits for all workers is reflected by the net worth of Forbes's 400 richest, which increased 20 percent in one year compared to a modest 2.7 percent rise in the Gross National Product (GNP).

Far from being just a question of the policies of the capitalist class, the policies of racism, sexism, unemployment, and war are necessities of the capitalist class. Superexploitation of Black, Latino, and women workers is profitable, and thus inherent to the system. Moreover, if Blacks and women are able to win back the $60 billion in superprofits wrung out of them, the profit system would go into a deep crisis.

Independent mobilization

The only time real progress has been made is when the working class, Blacks, Latinos, and women mobilized independently of the Republican and Democratic parties. Historically, only through mass actions and independent organization have working people and other oppressed sectors made the capitalists pay a political price for their "profitability" drives.

That's how trade unions were built, civil rights gained, women's rights defended, and progressive social legislation passed.

Ironically, the decline in Black rights and living standards occured over a 20-year span that saw a dramatic increase in Black elected officials (from 200 nationwide in 1965 to 6500 in 1986).

Unfortunately, the progressive act of conquering the franchise was coupled with a demobilization of the Black liberation movement. In the last analysis, this can be attributed to the role of the Democratic Party, which has the largest number of Black elected officials.

Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition want to tie the mass sentiment for social change among workers and the oppressed to a political party that represents the interests of their enemy—the capitalist class.

Such a strategy will only delay the historic march of working people and their allies for self-liberation. It will only suffocate their instinctual yearning for independent political action and buy time for the capitalists so that they can twist the knife in our backs even deeper.

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Local union leaders have overwhelmingly approved the United Auto Workers' new agreement with the Ford Motor Company. Owen F. Bieber, president of the U.A.W., said the agreement would serve as a pattern for a similar contract with the General Motors Corporation.

The new contract, which was ratified by Ford workers in a vote on Sept. 28, is being heralded as a great victory by top U.A. W. officials.

"In my 37 years at Ford," said U.A.W. Region 1A Director Ernest Lofton, "this is the best contract I have ever seen." But a close look at this proposed contract suggests a conclusion far from this.

The agreement's alleged attractiveness is hinged on so-called job-security guarantees. The union officialdom claims that the 104,000 Ford jobs are "locked in." But this "job guarantee" does not prevent job reduction through attrition or because of production declines.

In the case of such production cutbacks, UAW LOCKED UAW- OUT LOCKED OUT 8100