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America’s Solution

Howell Hurst 2020 Presidential Election, Economy & Finance, People, People Politics, Presidential Election

FROM MY CORNER

The United States’ problem is that those controlling capital have little, if any, respect for workers. They do not put real value on the work of the waitress, the cook, the bus and taxi driver, the maid, the motel room cleaner, the plumber, the carpenter, the stone mason, his helper, the roofer, the road worker, the barber, the handyman, the phone repairman, the electrician, the garbage man, the truly small business person.

I have long wanted to see all American workers earning less than $100,000 a year organize and go on strike. I would like to see them save up enough short-term cash for their entire family to stay home a full workweek, refusing either to do their job or to buy anything produced by the corporations of the country.

Such a strike would awaken the wealthy to how their money-making machinery would brake to a total halt if this happened. More importantly, it would awaken the workers and show them how utterly dependent their wealthy employers are on the people they so freely exploit.

If for a whole workweek all people earning less than $100,000 a year stopped working and buying anything, it would with massive clarity show the powers that be how weak their capitalistic ventures are without the labor and purchasing power of their workers.

I am for a law that requires corporations award all workers part ownership of the corporation they work for. Ownership of corporations should be shared among the top executives, stockholders, and workers.

Only in this way will the vastly destructive income chasm between capitalists and workers be eliminated. Workers are every bit as valuable as capital. They are moreso, because workers are also the true mass consumers of the basic goods produced by corporations.

American corporations are shooting themselves and their country in the foot holding millions of workers to less than life-supporting incomes. They are weakening their own domestic consumer markets by forcing low-income workers’ economic backs to the wall.

It is simple nearsightedness for corporate leaders to starve workers of life-sustaining incomes by refusing to share ownership and profits with them. The endless battle between corporate owner-executives and workers is specifically caused by the super wealthy retaining too much profit from the joint collaboration of capital and labor.

If American corporations were legally required to meld ownership into the income packages of all workers, the economic output of the corporations and country would increase. It has long been documented that worker ownership and management participation create more efficient ventures.

Allies in jointly-beneficial enterprise fare better than those where capital and labor are constantly fighting. Nationally-mandated workers’ part ownership of the corporation, having real recognized dollar value, would clearly benefit both corporations and workers.

Would corporate management earn somewhat less? Likely, yes. It would require they begin to envision their corporate purpose as much more than just making money. It would require them to assume responsibility for their country, something they have in recent years essentially abdicated.

Mandated part ownership by corporate workers would also emasculate the social economic system that is so frightful to and hated by corporations – that old corporate bugaboo: evil Socialism!

The vast economic divide between owners of capitalism and workers is a basic factor in most American civil anxiety today. If more stable human existence is to emerge and survive, corporate leaders must acknowledge that people, not capital, constitute the only valid building block of economies.

Capital is only a tool. People are the reason.

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2 thoughts on “America’s Solution

  1. First of all, the people who are the major stockholders of large corporations do not, themselves, ever do the work that the employees do. They are a completely different class of people, and everything about their lavish, luxurious way of life demands that they keep employees divided and repressed. As a matter of principle, they will never yield ownership, control and significant financial returns to employees, except for top management, who are their slave drivers.

    While striking seems like the obvious method to force owners to yield, actually, it is the wrong tactic, because when employees are out on strike, they have no power to exert their influence, except for the hope that financial losses will induce management to give workers a better deal. However, management and owners have much more financial reserves to wait out the conflict, while workers rarely can go for more than a week or two before they get desperate.

    No, striking is the wrong tactic. The best tactic, one I, personally initiated and enacted when I was in a union, back in the 70s, is to remain on the job, and carry out unannounced, coordinated work actions, in less than a 15 minute time frame, which, essentially, constitutes a legally entitled work break. After the work action/demonstration/rally, everyone goes right back to work at their regular posts. The workers’ leaders continue to negotiate with management, and if they don’t get a good deal, on another day, boom, another, unannounced mass walk-out/rally for another 15 minutes. You have no idea how terrifying this tactic is to management, because they completely lose control of the workplace, and there is nothing they can do about it. When the people I worked with used this tactic, instead of going on strike, we got everything we wanted in a new contract, and didn’t lose a minute of pay, either.

    1. Governments have blocked unions. So, I believe the union concept initiated nationally is a valid strategy to deny then both work and money. Of course, it requires proper organization nationally, which is difficult – but not impossible – to accomplish. Hal

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