Austerity - the battle cry of the 1% in the class war

What are the policies of austerity? They involve the cutting of public spending on services such as education, health care, and retirement pensions. In addition they also include the privatizing of existing government assets. Public employees suffer wage freezes or cuts and mass layoffs as part of austerity measures. Labor laws are revised to empower employers at the expense of employees’ job security, wages, benefits, and voice on the job. And austerity also involves increased taxes and charges on working class people. In America because of "the crisis" of the Fiscal Cliff, Democrats and Republicans combine forces to make the Grand Bargain. Workers in the U.S. face massive cuts to programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment insurance, Food Stamp assistance and other needed social safety nets.

Austerity is sold as the only means of reducing the government debt and restore business efficiency. It is not coincidentally that the architects of austerity, the think tanks and politicians representing the wealthy and big business elites with their corporations and banks are the one promoting such policies. The larger measures of austerity are yet to come, and it will be working people who will be expected to swallow them. The capitalist class argue that we all in the same boat and our fortunes rise together. This myth is just as fanciful as their notions of “shared sacrifice”.  The relationship between the bosses and the workers is that of predator to prey.

Big business is hoarding trillions of dollars rather than investing these funds in job creating production and services. In the U.S. alone it is estimated that these funds are up to $2 trillion. Corporations have no motivation to invest in goods and services without the prospect of a profit. So they are looking for other ways to enrich themselves. One way was treating the world economy as an enormous casino. For instance, it has been estimated that the total amount of derivatives being played in the market comes to $1.2 quadrillion — 20 times the amount of money currently in the global economy. The 1% does need to obtain real money from somewhere, however.

Austerity is a weapon they can use to muscle more profitabilty out of workers. Without a strong safety net, workers are left in an even more desperate competition with one another to find work. This enables employers to depress wages, benefits, and rights since they have a larger reserve of workers to pick from who are willing to take anything. Austerity is also a weapon to weaken the labor movement, the first line of defense for working people against the master class. For instance, in the U.S., it is not a coincidence that austerity measures are aimed first and foremost at public employees. They are the nation’s two most heavily unionized. If their unions can be broken into accepting austerity, sweeping aside the rest of us in the pursuit of more productivity and less costs will be all the easier task for the 1%. In short, austerity is a program of class war.

Greece has had at least 18 general strikes in the last two years, and many more mass mobilizations against austerity. This example has spread. On November 14, protests and strikes swept across Europe. Millions of people participated in these events. In Spain and Portugal there were national general strikes. Nine million Spaniards stayed at home, or 77 percent of the workforce of the country. Even in the U.S. therer has been numerous struggles such as the Wisconsin public secor workers and the Chicago teachers strike. The next step for workers is the building of an independent social movement that can advance its political understanding and organizational strength through mass collective struggle. To do this it is necessary to mobilize on the basis of what workers are willing to take united action on now in the fight against austerity cuts.  It is to unite workers into taking collective action now and increase their strength and political understanding.

But less austerity is not an option for workers suffering from the economic crisis and the others to come. Ultimately the outcome of this war between classes will be determined by a showdown and will require a fundamental transformation of the political and economic system if workers are to prevail. While austerity presents a great immediate threat, the struggle against it holds the promise of establishing a society founded on the democratic control of the worlds' resources to fulfil peoples' needs and not for the benefit of the few's gain. The workers rallying call should be "Forward to Socialism"

Adapted from here