Late April, 2023. The countdown is on. Six weeks until D Day. ‘’Default Day’’. The day America Defaults on its national debts, unless the ‘’debt ceiling’’ is raised. D Day may also go down in history as ‘’Depression Day’’, as it is also in danger of entering a Second Great Depression!
That is the opinion of the more honest of the bourgeois economists, although they dare not mention the dreaded D word, that of Depression. Instead, they use such expressions as ‘’economic catastrophe’’, ‘’collapse of the stock market’’, ‘’deep recession’’, ‘’high inflation’’, and ‘’high unemployment’’. What is that but a Depression?
Not that the leaders of the country are terribly concerned. In the finest tradition of true visionaries, they are focused on the ‘’big picture’’. The presidential election of November, 2024, is a mere eighteen months away, and that has managed to secure their undivided attention.
Nero fiddled while Rome burned!
Indeed, President Joe Biden has just announced his candidacy for a second term in office. He is running for re-election! No surprise there.
As well, the former president, Donald Trump, has also ‘’thrown his hat into the ring’’. He too wants to run for president, once again!
‘’So what’’, if the country defaults!
Mind you, it is entirely possible that President Joe Biden, and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, will come to some sort of an agreement, to raise the debt ceiling, yet again. No one is quite sure just what kind of agreement that could be, as there are various factions within the Republican Party of the House, and none of those factions seems to know just what they want! Yet they are not about to budge, until they get it, whatever that is!
The journalists who closely watch the political maneuvering, within the House of Representatives, have given the name of ‘’Five Families’’ to the various ‘’factions’’ within the Republican Party. They are speculating that perhaps Trump is ‘’calling the shots’’ from ‘’behind the scenes’’. His plan may be to force the country into default, blame it on Biden, and once again become president, in order to ‘’Make America Great Again’’.
It may well be that Trump deserves credit for being far more cunning, than most people think!
Biden is certainly ‘’caught between a rock and a hard place’’. If he agrees to their list of demands, -which are constantly changing!- he is almost guaranteed to lose the next election. If he does not agree to their demands, then the country faces default. On his ‘’watch’’, no less! He will be held responsible!
The current list of demands, of the ‘’Five Families’’ within the House, includes that of ‘’remaking national energy policy, to suit the oil and coal companies, throwing the unemployed off Medicaid and food stamps, defunding the IRS and cancelling the cancellation of the student debt’’. For Biden to agree to those demands, would result in political suicide!
Yet even if, by some minor miracle, the two sides do come to some sort of an agreement, and avoid default on the national debt, that in no way changes the fact that the banks are grossly over extended!
According to the FDIC, there are currently ‘’4,844 insured commercial banks’’ in the country. This is to say that each deposit, in those banks, is insured, up to 250,000! No more!
Yet as possibly all banks are over extended, facing bankruptcy, the FDIC has decided to support those that are ‘’Too Big To Fail’’, while ‘’throwing under the bus’’ those that are ‘’Too Small To Succeed’’! The ‘’Fortunate Few’’ may amount to no more than five or six! Several thousand American banks are about to go broke!
The alternative is to ‘’prop up’’ all banks. That only requires money! At least, nine Trillion, although estimates go as high as twenty three Trillion!
Yet the Treasury Secretary claims that the government is not about to allow those banks to go broke. Fine! Just where do they plan to get their hands on that much money? There are only two options. Either from the tax payers, or ‘’create it out of thin air’’!
If the tax payers are ‘’on the hook’’, for all those Trillions, then the national debt will have to be raised, immediately, to well over fortyTrillion!
The alternative, to ‘’create money out of thin air’’, as suggested by the Treasury Secretary, would lead to raging inflation! Far more than what we have now! This despite the fact that the Treasury Secretary denies that this is inflationary! She must be on drugs!
Either way, with a government default, or massive bank failures -possibly both!- the working people of the country are about to face an ‘’economic catastrophe’’, to use the expression of the economists. Their suffering is about to become far more intense!
Unless, of course, the capitalists are overthrown! That is only possible through Revolution! And that is where the women have a key role to play.
As Lenin stated, ‘’There can be no Socialist Revolution unless very many working women take a big part in it.’’ Yet that is most difficult, as Lenin also stated that ‘’one of the hardest things in every country has been to stir the women into action’’.
May I suggest that in the case of America, a great many women have already been ‘’stirred into action’’, so that the Socialist Revolutionary Movement is now even stronger than most people think!
In the past, American women have proven themselves to be excellent organizers.
Without doubt, one of the biggest, most successful protests, which spread around the world, was the Women’s March, on January 21, 2017. It took place on the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. It was supremely well organized!
As well, a great many women have taken part in the ‘’Me Too’’ Movement, which started in October of 2017. This ‘’prompted women from around the world to publicly share their experiences of sexual assault or harassment’’, according to the Internet.
It is reasonable to assume that the leaders of those protests were mainly middle class, petty bourgeois. Especially as the journalists report that the Me Too Movement was started by young women, who were anxious to ‘’break into’’ acting, to get a role in a movie. They found that the ‘’price’’ for such a role was ‘’sexual services’’ with certain very rich and powerful men, within the industry.
For many years, this has been considered to be a ’’reasonable request’’, among the entertainment industry. In fact, it is nothing other than a ‘’polite’’ form of rape.
From the viewpoint of the Revolutionary Movement, it is most significant that the women are in motion. Further, the fact is that they may be middle class, for the moment, but likely not for long!
As the crisis in capitalism intensifies, the middle class will be almost completely ‘’wiped out’’! Those who have a ‘’mere’’ few million ‘’in the bank’’, or at least in ‘’regional banks’’, are about to lose almost all! The FDIC covers only the first quarter million!
The vast majority of banks are about to ‘’go under’’! The popular understanding of ‘’small business’’ is about to expand, to include those, such as regional banks, which are worth less than tens or hundreds of millions!
Those who have money in those ‘’small, regional’’ banks, are about to lose them! Those who have money invested in small businesses, are about to lose that! Those who have money -capital- invested in stocks and bonds, are about to lose that! The stock market is about to ‘’crash’’! A repeat of the ‘’crash’’ of 1929! On steroids! Welcome to monopoly capitalism! Imperialism!
That is the ‘’one side of the coin’’, so to speak. The ‘’other side of the coin’’, is the fact that many of the middle class people, who are about to lose their life sayings, are well educated, aware of the Revolutionary theories of Marx and Lenin. After all, university education is mainly limited to the middle and upper classes. As well, it is only in university that those theories are even mentioned! And then only with a view to distorting them!
Yet no one has ever accused middle class people of being ‘’entirely stupid’’. Once these people are financially ruined, they will no doubt re-examine those Revolutionary theories, in a ‘’new light’’.
They will face the fact that they are ‘’ruined’’, and have ‘’no future’’ under capitalism. On the other hand, they have a ‘’bright future’’ under Socialism! After the Revolution, there will be a ‘’big demand’’ for people who know how to run a factory! As well as numerous other enterprises, for that matter!
After all, there is a big difference between running a machine, and running a factory!
With that in mind, we can expect the intellectuals, among the ‘’soon to be ruined’’ middle class, to ‘’take the bull by the horns’’, and take part in the formation of a true Communist Party. After all, they will soon realize that such a true Communist Party is necessary! Only such a Party can give proper direction.
It is very likely that many of those intellectuals will be women, as so many of them are now taking a leading role in the Revolution.
Perhaps it would be helpful to let them know what to expect.
After the Russian Socialist Revolution, of 1917, Lenin spoke of the role of women. He pointed out that under capitalism, ‘’In all civilized countries, even the most advanced, women are actually no more than domesticated slaves’’. He went on to say that ‘’One of the primary tasks of the Soviet Republic is to abolish all restrictions on women’s rights. The Soviet government has completely abolished divorce proceedings, that source of bourgeois degradation, repression and humiliation.’’
Perhaps as a means of stressing the importance of this, Lenin went on to state ‘’The status of women up to now has been compared to that of a slave; women have been tied to the home, and only Socialism can save them from this’’.
Lenin further went on to say: ‘’But you cannot draw the masses into politics without drawing in the women as well. For under capitalism, the female half of the human race is doubly oppressed. The working woman and the peasant woman are oppressed by capital, but over and above all that, even in the most democratic of the bourgeois republics, they remain firstly, deprived of some rights because the law does not give them equality with men; and secondly -and this is the main thing- they remain in ‘household bondage’, they continue to be ‘household slaves’, for they are overburdened with the drudgery of the most squalid, back breaking and stultifying toil in the kitchen and the family household.’’
Of course, after the Russian Revolution, under Socialism, the law was changed, so that men and women were equal. Yet changing the law was merely the ‘’first step’’.
Lenin went on to say that ‘’The second and most important step is the abolition of the private ownership of land and factories. This and this alone opens up the way towards a complete and actual emancipation of woman, her liberation from ’household bondage’, through transition from petty individual housekeeping to large scale socialized domestic services…To effect her complete emancipation and make her the equal of the man, it is necessary for the national economy to be socialized and for the women to participate in common productive labour. Then women will occupy the same position as men.’’
This brings us to a popular misconception. Many people, on the Left, think that under Socialism, women will be expected to do the same type of work as men, to work the same hours, and produce the same amount. Such is not the case! As this subject is of such exceptional importance, I have decided to quote Lenin, at considerable length.
As Lenin explained: ‘’Here we are not of course speaking of making women the equal of men as far as productivity of labour, the quantity of labour, the length of the working day, labour conditions, etc., are concerned; we mean that the woman should not, unlike the man, be oppressed because of her position in the family. You all know that even when women have full rights, they still remain factually down trodden because all house work is left to them. In most cases house work is the most unproductive, the most barbarous and the most arduous work a woman can do. It is exceptionally petty and does not include anything that would in any way promote the development of the woman.
‘’In pursuance of the Socialist ideal, we want to struggle for the full implementation of Socialism, and here an extensive field of labour opens up for women. We are now making serious preparations to clear the ground for the building of Socialism, but the building of Socialism will begin only when we have achieved the complete equality of women and when we undertake the new work together with women who have been emancipated from that petty, stultifying, unproductive work. This is a job that will take us many, many years.
‘’We are setting up model institutions, dining rooms and nurseries, that will emancipate women from house work…This is a matter for the women themselves…our task is to make politics available to every working woman’’
In my opinion, too many people, on the Left, are focused on ‘’demanding equality’’, women with men.
For one thing, such a demand requires women to work the same hours, the same labour conditions, the same productivity, and so forth. That is simply not reasonable, especially under capitalism. As most women are also responsible for house work, it merely adds to their burden!
Lenin went on to say: ‘’It is the chief task of the working women’s movement to fight for economic and social equality, and not only formal equality, for women. The chief thing is to get women to take part in socially productive labour, to liberate them from ’domestic slavery’, to free them from their stupefying and humiliating subjugation to the eternal drudgery of the kitchen and the nursery.’’
The equality of women is possible only under Socialism, and that, only after a great many years!
In the interests of the ‘’chief task’’, of the ‘’women’s movement’’, that of fighting for ‘’economic and social equality’’, to ‘’liberate them’’ from the ‘’drudgery’’ of ‘’domestic slavery’’, may I suggest that women fight for such things as day care and nurseries.
It may help to think of these demands as part of the Revolutionary Movement for Scientific Socialism. But then, that is precisely the case!
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 