and the economy struck down the band… (2009)

**This is a post from 2009 but it is still very pertinent in 2011.**

As advertised on my profile information, I work at a music store. Today, I had to resist the urge to give one of my customers a hug. She was a mother of two, black, and looked just so drained. She put the instrument up on the case and said that she wanted to return it. So, according to my training, I asked her if her child had decided to quit playing trumpet. She looked at the ground and said that no, she had lost her job and couldn’t afford to pay to rent anymore. I talked with her for about twenty minutes or so about how the economy was just sucking people dry. We delved into how the feeling of callous apathy permeated the American minds, leaving those who needed compassion the most left out in the cold. I gave her the website to UNC’s HR department so that she might find a job there and suggested a couple places to go to. She left a little happier and told me thank you for my kindness and understanding.

Capitalism: the accumulation of wealth motivated by the desire for profit (“profits are the money you make without working,” from “The Sword and the Dollar” by Parenti, pg. 8); the capitalist seeks to gain increasing amounts of profit through acquisition of labor, the force that produces capital. Capital is the power to invest and thereby duplicate itself; it is the surplus created from labor and gives the capitalist the ability to continue building more capital, thus gaining more power and more profit while investing as little or none of her own labor power as possible but instead, relying on the labor power of others (namely, the employees).

The woman who returned her son’s trumpet today was a victim of capitalism. She was a laborer, a worker who built up capital for the employers. She was assistant manager on the verge of being promoted and what happened to her and all her fellow workers? They were all laid off because of, as the company informed them, “shrinkage.” What the fuck does that mean anyway? She guessed that it meant people were stealing, but she also made the point that the company did very little to protect its products. There were no cameras in the store or magnetic devices on the clothes. Someone could easily steal something by “trying it on,” putting on her shirt over the store’s shirt, and walk out undetected. Furthermore, the place where I am stumped is that the majority of her fellow workers were up for promotion and consequently, an increase in their wage/salary. How convenient for the company to claim “shrinkage” and then lay off everyone without, according to her, more than a week’s notice. I think the reason for the lay offs is so obvious here that I will not waste my hands the time to discuss it any further, the conclusion is clear.

You might ask how does that make her a victim of capitalism? Having to pay your labor force cuts into your profits. If your current labor force, your employees, are up for a promotion, which typically entails a raise in pay, your profits become even more slim because now you must contribute more of your company’s earnings to their pay. So, if you want to earn the same amount of profits, and perhaps more, and you don’t want to take the hit by increasing wages, what does the savvy capitalist do? Well, you lay off your soon-to-be-promoted labor force, hire rookies, pay them less because they are rookies and because the economy is “so bad,” taking advantage of the fact that they “need” these jobs. Increase profits by cutting cost, thus building more capital.

“But capitalism creates jobs! A healthy, capitalist economy has plenty of jobs at good pay.” From simply reading the paragraphs above and doing a bit of research, you can already pull back the veil on this enormous lie. Hell, its fat ass can barely hide behind the tiny American flag that it is desperately trying to hold in front of its face. Capitalism creates jobs, sure. But does it promote raises in pay? No, that costs too much. And it will create the bare minimum amount of jobs needed to increase capital at an escalating rate for those who hold the reins of the labor force. The employees become the capitalist’s work horse, not a mutual member of the company. The employee is not an asset, she is cost to the company; she is a LACK, not a gain.

Yes, I am not an economist nor am I highly educated with regards to political science. But these ideas are not new and they are not difficult to understand and much less so to piece together. The woman knew what happened. She knew the real reason why she had to give back a source of joy for her son. She knew why she, like so many and many more, is utilizing federal welfare programs. She has to feed her kids until she finds another job so she turns to food stamps. And if she needs to take them to the doctor, she has to have a way to pay for it so she turns to Medicaid. This is the way of it, people. If you can’t do it on your own, you must have help. Americans, especially conservative ones, do not understand that NOTHING, nothing they do, anyone else does, or will do, or can do, is done solely through the efforts of that one person. You do not “pull yourself by your own bootstraps,” you reach for a helping hand. And people love to forget that often times, the people needing helping hands do not even have boots to begin with.

We have to stop condemning the poor and condoning the rich. We can no longer embrace this system of pure capitalism and force ourselves to ingest the lie that it makes the world a better place. Capitalists are thriving right now and the working class is sinking further and further into poverty. Yes, the capitalist system is working perfectly, just the way it is supposed to. But where does that leave us? For Tonya, the lady who handed over her son’s instrument, it left her jobless and hurting.