David F. Ruccio — Balance this!

First, we have to understand, the U.S. trade deficit has risen and U.S. manufacturing output has fallen not because of the “blind forces” of international trade. For decades now, U.S. corporations have decided to increase their profits by a combination of shifting production to other countries and automating many of the production processes that remain in the United States. And they’ve left the American working-class behind.

Second, there’s no guarantee that increasing manufacturing output within the United States will be accompanied by an equivalent number of new jobs. Just look at the chart at the top of the post. Since 2009, U.S. manufacturing output has increased by more than 38 percent but jobs in the manufacturing sector have only risen by 8.2 percent.

The U.S. trade balance is thus not the problem. The forces of U.S. capitalism have sacrificed the American working-class on the altar of higher profits. They did so before Trump was elected—and they’ve continued to do so since.

The problem capitalism as the political choice to favor capital (bourgeois liberalism, ownership of private property) as a factor over labor (workers, most people) and land (the environment). This choice involves negative externality based on capitalizing gains and socializing losses. Workers and the environment bear this cost of income and wealth transfer to the top.

The solution? Increasing the priority of people and the environment and decreasing the priority of ownership.

The result if not implemented? Increasing dysfunction and eventual systemic breakdown.

No brainer, especially when the consequences of fouling the nest are rising, and social and political unrest is increasing.

Something is needed to restore balance and it is not a matter of reform as much as redesigning the a system that is no longer working.

At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.   — Karl Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

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Balance this!
David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics University of Notre Dame Notre Dame