How can we win jobs for all?

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The answer of union officials to the question posed in our headline is simple: elect more Democrats—even though control of the White House and both houses of Congress has meant more pro-business legislation and trillions in bailouts for banks and corporations. The answer of liberal economists is equally simple: another stimulus package to get us over the hump of what they see as merely a slow recovery.

And the answer of the Democratic and Republican parties is simple—and savage: cut deficits by slashing jobs, Social Security, pensions, and as many other public programs and benefits as possible.

The socialist answer, while equally simple, starts from a profoundly different vantage point—the needs of workers regardless of the impact on the bosses’ profits or on the political fortunes of their parties. The jobless so-called recovery On Sept. 20, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the Great Recession had officially ended in June 2009. The bureau admitted that this only meant output of goods and services had stopped declining, not that unemployment, foreclosures, or any other recession-related phenomena had diminished. In fact, the U.S. economy has lost more jobs than it has added since the recovery supposedly began. The Organization for Economic Cooperation supposedly began. fundraiser held at a Connecticut real estate mogul’s mansion, mocking those who criticize his policies: “Democrats, just congenitally, tend to get—to see the glass as half empty [laughter]. If we get an historic health care bill passed—oh, well, the public option wasn’t there. If you get the financial reform bill passed—then, well, I don’t know about this particular derivatives rule, I’m not sure that I’m satisfied with that. And gosh, we haven’t yet brought about world peace and— [laughter]. I thought that was going to happen quicker” [laughter].

Meanwhile, Obama’s chumminess with the wealthy has only emboldened those wanting even further concessions. One of the most commonly cited was that of Steve Schwartzman, head of Blackrock private equity, who compared Obama’s effort to close some billionaires’ tax loopholes to “the Nazi invasion of Poland.”

Liberal op-ed columnist Paul Krugman correctly noted that “when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed.”

In the midst of deepening misery and major party faithfulness to their rich funders, it’s no surprise that union members are increasingly ignoring pleas from labor officials to get out there and hustle up votes (see the Sept. 17 New York Times article chock full of quotes from union officials bemoaning the rank and file’s resistance to their appeals).

Labor’s resentment will be on display in huge numbers on Oct. 2 in the streets of Washington. The event’s lead organizers (One Nation Working Together) will seek to defuse and disempower the people who assemble in Washington by trying to herd them the day after into efforts to elect Democrats. This explains the timid and vague nature of the demands for Oct. 2 itself.

The Call to Action for the march demands “a million new jobs right away.” Yet the more pressing question is how to obtain jobs for all, which would require tens of millions of old jobs restored and new ones created.

This would require a radical change in the priorities that are endemic to the profit-hungry capitalist system. What do socialists propose?

• A shorter workweek, with no cut in pay, in order to spread the jobs to the unemployed.

• The government should undertake a vast public works program—organized and controlled by elected assemblies of workers and community groups—in which many millions could be employed to provide the schools, clinics, mass transportation, and sustainable industry that the working people of this country need. How to pay for it:

• End the wars—and tax the super-rich!

The Call also advocates fixing the “broken immigration system.” But every indication is that the organizers will back immigration “reform” that is still largely (continued on page 3, in “How can we win jobs for all?”)