Unemployment

[The Grey Blur]

How is it a creation of the Capitalist system? Surely full employment would help the bourgeoise produce more, and in turn sell more, in turn creating more profits? Also how would a Socialist society solve this problem?

Sorry, I feel a bit stupid asking these questions but I don't know everything ;)

[bolshevik butcher]

Unemployment keeps wages down. If theres a ready supply of wages, then following the laws of supply and demand wages will be lower. The unemployed are avialable for a time when there is a boom period, when there is economic growth and the bourgoirse needs more workers it can easily take on the unemployed.

Socialism would involve a planned economy. The economy would be planned, it would be advantageous to have as many workers onboard as possible, unlike capitalism it would not go through booms and bust periods.

[Demogorgon]

If everybody is employed the workers do not have to compete for work and are less easily exploited.

[Fodman]

also, the larger the amount of unemployed, the more easily a worker can be replaced - Marx defined them as the 'Reserve Army of Labour', whose only real purpose is to keep the employed workers in their place, fearing that they would be replaced as soon as they protested their conditions or wages

[which doctor]

Surely full employment would help the bourgeoise produce more, and in turn sell more, in turn creating more profits?
Just because one is producing more, does not mean they are selling more. Remember their must be demand for value in the market.

A lot of the time the bourgeoisie just doesn't need a lot of workers. In many cases workers don't even aid production much, automation has replaced many workers.


Also how would a Socialist society solve this problem?
The problem of what? Unemployment? Unemployment in socialist society wouldn't really be a problem in the first place. There is clearly enough food, goods, etc. to go around. Also, those who are currently working, will have their hours cut to allow for the unemployed to labor. Hours would be cut even more when all the useless jobs (politicians, management, lawyers, automation replacing factory workers, etc.) allowing a flood of more workers so working hours would be reduced even further. At optimum production and automation, I'm guessing the average person would really only have to "work" around 10 hours a week to produce an adequate number of goods for the populus.

I know I went off on a tangent :wacko:

[Labor Shall Rule]

How is it a creation of the Capitalist system? Surely full employment would help the bourgeoise produce more, and in turn sell more, in turn creating more profits? Also how would a Socialist society solve this problem?

Sorry, I feel a bit stupid asking these questions but I don't know everything

It was the inevitable result of the growth of trade which enabled certain city dwellers to specialize in the purchase and resale of commodities, and thus to accumulate some commercial capital, which through the utilization of colonial assets, helped them to expand by untold proportions, withdrawing the labor-power of the former peasantry that floated to the cities. In essence, the creation of the unemployed was the formulation of the dynamics of capitalism; while in feudalism, peasants received a product of their labor and were tied to their land without the threat of misplacement, while under the mercy of capitalist production, they were reduced to a mere fragment of a machine that was not ensured the livelihood of their ancestors.

This 'reserve army of labor', or the unemployed, is beneficial to the capitalist class. In the United States today, Chrysler is being sold to a group of financial speculators who have no experience and, in fact, little interest in the production of cars. The $24 billion investment firm specializes in buying money-losing companies for a pittance, “restructuring” them, by slashing jobs. It is, in other words, a financial fancy for the bosses to see that this happens. It permits high-salaried jobs to be cut, benefits to be slashed, and for cheap labor to be found in low-cost regions. It expands and relaxes the growth of capital.


Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Chapter 25: The General Law of Capitalist Accumulation:

"capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers, i.e., a population of greater extent than suffices for the average needs of the valorisation of capital, and therefore a surplus-population... It is the absolute interest of every capitalist to press a given quantity of labour out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of labourers, if the cost is about the same... The more extended the scale of production, the stronger this motive. Its force increases with the accumulation of capital."

This is also the reason that real wages and employment are decreasing in the United States, a vaster influx of cheap labor-power provided by the incoming immigrants, combined with the allocation of capital to foreign markets, we have seen that profits are now higher than ever. There is an increased amount of labor embodied in the means of production, so we have seen that there is also an increased amount of the unemploymed.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

In the United States today, Chrysler is being sold to a group of financial speculators who have no experience and, in fact, little interest in the production of cars. The $24 billion investment firm specializes in buying money-losing companies for a pittance, “restructuring” them, by slashing jobs. It is, in other words, a financial fancy for the bosses to see that this happens. It permits high-salaried jobs to be cut, benefits to be slashed, and for cheap labor to be found in low-cost regions. It expands and relaxes the growth of capital.


Why cannot the company do that themselves?

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 08:07 pm
Why cannot the company do that themselves?
Well, when it is not as profitable, it is easier to sell ownership, or at least a part of ownership, to a seperate party that will carve it up in order to reinvest capital in a more successful conglomerate. It is matter of either attaining declining profits through ongoing continuation of the company that is being blown by higher wages along with pension and healthcare obligations to their employees, or slashing them and redirecting them in order to restart the entire process again. In other words, they upper stratum thinks in accordance to it's interests; it strives towards it's objective of higher profits, and where it is failing, it will strike without mercy. Keep in mind, these jobs that are being downsized will either be allocated to a non-unionized factory in the United States, or elsewhere in low-cost regions in the 'third world'.

[Tower of Bebel]

Unemployement is also an actual problem.

Today, we have a rather high number of unemployed workers. The crisis of 1974 had a huge effect on the workers because factories were displaced to Asia or Africa for cheap labor, or people were just fired because the companies wanted to pay less people if they could. Neoliberal workerspolicy was meand to get rid of those unemployed. But by now the same number of unemployed since the eighties is still there. The government tries to solves this by actively chasing unemployed and forcing them to take any job available. In benefit of social security the government tends to say.