There are currently well over four thousand banks in the United States. The vast majority of those banks, around four thousand, are classified as Community Banks. One hundred thirty four are classified as Regional Banks, and thirty one are classified as Large Financial Institutions, LFI. Of those LFI’s, only eight are classified as Too Big To Fail. By implication, all of the other banks are classified as Too Small To Succeed!
Among the banks that are Too Big To Fail, the one with the least amount of assets is worth a ‘’mere’’ $469 Billion! That is roughly half a trillion! It stands to reason that any bank or corporation, which has assets of less than half a trillion, is considered to be Too Small To Succeed!
This gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘’middle class’’! By definition, the middle class is composed of people who own small businesses. Such people are referred to as ‘’petty bourgeois’’, as the word petty means small, while bourgeois means capitalist. Small time capitalist.
Then there are the monopoly capitalists, referred to as the bourgeoisie. That is the class of people who own Billions, or even tens, if not hundreds of Billions. It is this class, the bourgeoisie, which is currently running the country.
This same class of people have also recently simplified the class conflict! They just made it clear that anyone who owns or controls a bank or business, with assets of less than half a Trillion, is middle class! Those businesses are Too Small To Succeed!
We can only express our most heart felt gratitude to the bourgeoisie, for this clarification!
This simply means that so many people, who have assets of tens or hundreds of millions, or even a Billion or two (?), have just been informed that they are ‘’middle class’’, ‘’petty bourgeois’’, ‘’Too Small To Succeed’’. As such, they are ‘’fair game’’, for the bourgeoisie, the monopoly capitalists, as it is now ‘’open season’’ on the middle class!
Those few, extremely rich individuals, members of the bourgeoisie, now own or control the few banks and corporations, which are classified as Too Big To Fail. They are now focused on wiping out the middle class, those who are Too Small To Succeed! In fact, those small business owners are ‘’living on borrowed time!
Fair warning! The monopoly capitalists, the bourgeoisie, are coming after you! Your days of living the ‘’good life’’, the middle class ‘’American dream’’, are about to come to an end! The class of people whom you so admire, whom you would love to join -and who can blame you?- are about to destroy you! Soon, you will join the ranks of the working class, the proletariat!
The current crisis in capitalism is about to become ever more intense! Numerous community banks, those that are ‘’tottering on the edge’’, are about to collapse! The monopoly capitalists have no intention of ‘’propping them up’’! They are Too Small To Succeed!
As they collapse, this will in turn lead to a ‘’run’’ on all the other banks. As those banks collapse, this will in turn, drag the middle class down with them!
Even the first quarter million of all deposits, which is technically insured by the FDIC, may not be covered! After all, the FDIC recently gave seventy Billion to Silicon Valley Bank, in a pathetic attempt to prop up that bank. Where did they get all that money?
It is very likely that this was the money that was set aside to cover the first quarter million of all deposits, in all the banks! ‘’Bye bye’’ first quarter million which is -was!- insured by the FDIC!
We can expect a repeat of that which happened in 1929! The Great Depression! A Second Great Depression is ‘’right around the corner’’! Except that this one is expected to be far more intense!
Just as was the case in the First Great Depression, the bourgeoisie have no intention of losing any money! They have every intention of placing the burden on the ‘’lower classes’’.
This is to say that the members of the middle class will soon be ruined, forced into the ranks of the working class, the proletariat.
At the time of the First Great Depression, as the stock market crashed, a great many stock brokers ‘’took a header’’, jumped out of the windows of the skyscrapers in New York City, as they ‘’lost their paper fortunes’’. Numerous others, middle class people one and all, found other ways to commit suicide. Senseless!
To the modern day equivalent of those unfortunate people, I can only say that there is no need to ‘’slash your wrists’’.
Despair not! There is a bright future waiting for you, but not under capitalism! It is only after the Revolution, after the bourgeoisie are overthrown, after the existing state apparatus is smashed, after we crush the bourgeoisie, under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! That is your ‘’bright future’’!
This calls for a little explanation. Perhaps in previous articles, I have not been quite clear.
Let me start by saying that when I refer to ‘’capitalists’’, I am referring to the monopoly capitalists, the bourgeoisie, those who are billionaires and multi billionaires. Such people have never done an honest days work in their lives. They are supremely proud of this fact! Complete parasites! They merely invest their capital, and take no part in managing any business. They contribute nothing to society! For that reason, they have absolutely no skills.
That stands in stark contrast to middle class people, those who own and manage their own business, or manage the businesses of the bourgeoisie. Either way, they have skills which will be in demand, after the Revolution.
I should also mention that I write in a very popular manner, even to the point of an occasional over simplification. This is deliberate. After all, during a time of Revolutionary upheaval, as we are now experiencing, we can expect countless working class people to become politically active. Or as Lenin phrased it, in Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder, ‘’symptomatic of any genuine Revolution is a rapid, tenfold and even hundredfold increase in the size of the working and oppressed masses -hitherto apathetic- who are capable of waging the political struggle’’.
For that reason, I have been mainly focused on the working class, the proletariat, as well as the lower strata of the middle class, the petty bourgeois. After all, many of those people were formerly working class.
That is still the case. Yet the latest developments, due to the current crisis in capitalism, has caused me to also focus on the ‘’upper strata’’ of the middle class, and even the ‘’lower strata’’ of the ‘’upper class’’. The reason for this is that the bourgeoisie have recently ‘’let it slip’’ that they plan to ruin anyone who has assets of less than $500 Billion! Feel free to take their word for it!They are not joking!
May I suggest, to middle class people, that you first face that most unpleasant fact. I repeat, you have no future under capitalism! That is the ‘’bad news’’, so to speak. If you will excuse the terrible joke, the ‘’good news’’ is that you have a bright future, but only under Scientific Socialism!
Further, face the fact that Scientific Socialism, in the form of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, will not happen by itself! Working class people -Revolutionaries!- need leaders! This is to say that they need a true Communist Party, one which calls for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Only such a Communist Party can raise the level of awareness of the working class, can make them class conscious, aware of the necessity of first overthrowing the bourgeoisie, smashing the existing state apparatus, and then crushing those parasites, the bourgeoisie, under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat!
Such Scientific Socialism, which demands the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, is the one -and only!- true form of Socialism! All other ‘’utopian’’ forms of Socialism, have proven to be an abject failure!
That is where middle class intellectuals can prove to be most useful. Bear in mind that both Marx and Engels were middle class intellectuals. As was Lenin! In fact, he was a lawyer! Scientific Socialism is not just for ‘’workers and peasants’’! It is for all members of society! Nor is it merely a ‘’good idea’’! On the contrary, it is inevitable! Marx proved that capitalism gives rise to Socialism!
It is simply not reasonable to expect the working class, by itself, to form a Revolutionary Communist Party, one which calls for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. With very few exceptions, that of the occasional advanced worker -a true intellectual!- almost none of them are aware of the Revolutionary theories of Marx and Lenin.
Such a task, that of forming a true CP,DP, falls upon the shoulders of middle class intellectuals. Bear in mind that working class intellectuals can assist you in this.
There is no need to wait for the banks to fail, the stock market to crash, and financial ruin, in the form of the Second Great Depression. Instead, take the ‘’bull by the horns’’ now, and take part in the creation of a true Communist Party.
For that matter, the Revolution could break out at any time. It will happen when it happens!
Yet without a proper Communist Party, at the time of the Revolution, a different group of capitalists could well take over the existing state apparatus, and set themselves up as the new rulers. Rest assured, that is precisely the plan of numerous people, those who claim to be Marxists, but deny the necessity of smashing the existing state apparatus, and of establishing the Dictatorship of the Proletariat! Social chauvinists, one and all!
In conclusion, I can only say that the ‘’ball is in your court’’, to use a sports metaphor. Financial ruin under capitalism, or a true Communist Party, and success under Scientific Socialism. Your choice.
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 