the international
communist
and
working-class
movement
A. MKRTCHIAN
__TITLE__ US Labour Unions Today __TEXTFILE_BORN__ 2007-12-19T09:36:52-0800 __TRANSMARKUP__ "Y. Sverdlov" __SUBTITLE__ Basic Problems and Trends PROGRESS PUBLISHERS
MOSCOW
Translated from the Russian
A. MKPTMflH
IIPO<U(;OrO3bI CI1IA
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In the early 1960s, the US labour movement entered a new period of its development, a period, as described by Gus Hall, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USA, "of mass discontent and mass probing, when injustices and inequities are challenged, when old concepts, old alliances and accepted practices no longer meet the needs of the rising struggles pressuring for change.''^^1^^
The serious economic and political difficulties which American imperialism had run into in the preceding two decades created additional possibilities for the labour movement. Structural changes in the economy, the consequences of the scientific and technological revolution, the relative weakening of US positions in world industrial production, trade and monetary reserves, the altered international situation and the successes scored by the socialist countries---all these factors tended to aggravate the social antagonisms within the country and had impetus to an upsurge in the class struggle, introducing into it certain new features.
Mass struggle in recent years has moved along four basic lines: for equality and civil rights for the black people; for peace and against the government's aggressive foreign policy; for democracy; for the vital interests and rights of the working class. These mass movements, which have been unfolding since the early 1960s against a background of a _-_-_
~^^1^^ Gus Hall, "The Communist Party---a Review and Perspective'', Political Affairs, May 1966, p. 1.
8 noticeably heightened offensive against broad segments of the working people by the monopolies, determine the specific character of the present period in the labour movement.This book is devoted to a study of present developments in the US labour movement; it examines above all the present status of working people in the United States and the major aspects of the struggle of the working class to defend its economic interests and rights. Considerable attention is given to government labour policy under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, and the attitudes and reactions of labour unions to that policy. An examination is made of new trends in the progressive development of the trade union movement and the growth of union activity after the period of stagnation in which the American trade union movement found itself in the 1950s. Special attention is given to the strike movement and its specific features.
As noted in the documents of the Communist Party of the USA, the qualitative changes in the mass struggle of working people in the 1960s have made practicable the aspiration of the great mass of rank-and-file union members to transform the organised labour movement into an instrument of class struggle capable of dealing with today's problems. The period under consideration contains much that is important for assessing the possibilities and future prospects of the working people's struggle against the power of the monopolies, the struggle for a democratic renovation of American society and the struggle for socialism.
[9] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ CHAPTER I __ALPHA_LVL1__ THE MONOPOLIESA characteristic feature of US economic development in the 1960s was continued concentration of economic power in the hands of the monopolies. The power of giant corporations grew steadily: by the end of the Second World War there were 43 billionaire corporations in the USA, and 93 in 1959, whereas by 1962, the total number of companies ( banking, insurance, industrial, transportation, etc.) with assets of over $1,000 million amounted to 116, in 1965---149, in 1967---194, and in 1970---252.^^1^^
Increased concentration and centralisation of capital over recent years has resulted in a new and significant growth in the power of the big banking monopolies. In 1967, there were about 14,000 commercial banks in the USA, with total assets of $452,300 million. At the same time, the 50 largest banks had assets of $186,600 million; in other words, less than 0.4 per cent of the banks controlled over 40 per cent of the country's total commercial banking assets. Furthermore, the aggregate assets of the five leading US banks comprised $74,800 million, or two-fifths of the assets of the 50 biggest banks.^^2^^
Figures published annually in Fortune magazine illustrate _-_-_
~^^1^^ Calculated according to Fortune, Inly 1963, pp. 178--80; August 1963, pp. 140--50; luly 15, 1966, pp. 232--60; June 15, 1968, pp. 188--217; May 1971, pp. 172--201.
~^^2^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1968, p. 444; Fortune, June 15, 1968, p. 208.
10 the rapid growth in these five banks' concentration of capital in recent years:^^1^^ The Biggest Banks Assets (in million dollars) 1960 1970 Bank of America 11,941 9,200 8,832 4,539 4,423 29,740 24,526 25,835 10,979 12,112 Chase Manhattan Bank First National City Bank Chemical New York Corp Morgan Guaranty Trust Co.A small group of banks not only dominates the country's entire financial life, but also controls an ever greater part of the giant US corporations. Findings of the House Banking and Currency Committee show that most of the country's large corporations are controlled by 15 banks having a total of $113,000 million in assets. First National Bank of Chicago owns over 5 per cent of the shares in 401 companies; Chemical Bank New York Trust has representatives on the boards of directors of 278 companies; and Morgan Guaranty Trust owns from 5 per cent to 20 per cent of the shares in all the leading copper producing companies except Anaconda.^^2^^
Concentration of capital in American industry also reached an exceptionally high level in the 1960s. According to official figures, in 1964, 1,758 corporations with assets of $100 million or over owned 58.5 per cent of the capital, or assets, of all registered active corporations in all branches of the economy.^^3^^
The high degree of concentration of capital in the US manufacturing industry can be seen from data computed by University of Wisconsin Economics Professor Willard Mueller. In 1970, the 102 largest corporations (with assets of $1,000 million or over) of the 198,000 in this sector held 48 per cent of the overall total assets; 609 (with assets of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fortune, August 1961, p. 132; May 1971, p. 192.
~^^2^^ Political Affairs, February 1969, p. 46.
~^^3^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1967, p. 492.
11 $100 million or over) held 76 per cent of the total assets; and 2,500 owned 88 per cent.^^1^^ The manufacturing sector may also be used as an example showing the rate at which the concentration of capital in US industry proceeded after the Second World War. In 1948, the 200 largest corporations in this field owned about 48 per cent of the total assets, while in 1967, they owned 59 per cent.^^2^^The trend toward continued increase in the concentration of production is no less apparent. In 1947, the 200 biggest companies' share of newly created value in the manufacturing sector was 30 per cent; in 1958 it was 38 per cent and in 1963---41 per cent.^^3^^ The US Department of Commerce estimates show that if concentration continues at this rate, these 200 companies will in the next few years be producing one half the output of the manufacturing sector.
A few big corporations in each of the major US industries are the basic producers of a given kind of product. Thus, entire industries---such as automobile manufacturing, aircraft manufacturing, copper refining, production of aluminium, tin and tin plate, electrical equipment, agricultural machinery, office equipment, alcoholic beverages, etc.---are often controlled by three or four giant corporations. For example, General Motors, Ford and Chrysler make 95 per cent of all new automobiles produced in the country. ALCOA, Reynolds Metals and Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical control nearly 90 per cent of the aluminium market; US Steel, Bethlehem Steel and Republic Steel put out about 60 per cent of the country's steel, and Anaconda, Kennecott Copper, American Smelting and Refining and Phelps Dodge produce virtually all of the country's refined copper.^^4^^
The big US companies have grabbed key positions not only in the economy of their own country, but in the entire world capitalist system. Of the 457 monopolies in the capitalist world with a turnover of over $250 million, 272, or 60 per cent, are American. The top three in volume of capital are US companies: General Motors, Standard Oil of _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Fcdcralionisl, August 1970, p. 1.
~^^2^^ Ibid., May 1969, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Political Affairs, November 1966, p. 53.
~^^4^^ The New Republic, August 13, 1966, p. 19.
12 New Jersey and Ford Motor, in that order. As for the top positions in specific industries, the big three from the US head the list in automobile manufacturing; the dominating positions in the electrical engineering and electronics fields are held by General Electric, International Business Machines and Western Electric; US Steel is in first place in the ferrous metal industry; the largest in the chemical and the oil industry are E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Standard Oil of New Jersey, in that order; and the world leader in meat processing is also a US monopoly---Swift.^^1^^ The biggest US monopolies, according to data compiled by US economist Richard J. Barber, produce more than the corresponding industries of any West European country, and their aggregate turnover exceeds the gross national product of several West European countries put together. General Motors, for example, writes Barber, which employs 700,000 foreign and American workers, has hundreds of suppliers, plants in practically every state and equipment in twenty-four foreign countries, is virtually---except for certain formal signs---a State in itself.^^2^^ The gross national product of this ``State'' is greater than that of such countries as Argentina, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark or Venezuela.^^3^^Holding the key strategic positions in today's US economy, the biggest corporations and banks have in turn formed super-powerful financial and industrial empires that are controlled by several billionaire families. The multimillionaire Rockefeller family, for example, plays the decisive role in an empire consisting of nine banks and insurance companies, including such giants as Chase Manhattan Bank, Metropolitan Life Insurance and Equitable Life Assurance; six big oil companies, including Standard Oil of New Jersey; two railway and one aircraft companies. The empire also includes such giant corporations as Westinghouse Electric, Borden, American Sugar Refining, American Telephone and Telegraph and many others. The total assets of this financial and industrial group are estimated at $63,000 million.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Fortune, July 15, 1966, pp.
232--36; August 1966, pp. 148--51.
~^^2^^ Richard J. Barber, The American Corporation. Its Power, Its Money, Its Politics, New
York, E. P. Button and Co., 1970, pp. 7-8.
^^3^^ UAW Washington Report, October 26, 1970.
13The increasing concentration of capital and of production and the unprecedented growth of a few hundred corporations' monopoly power takes place under conditions of a fierce competitive struggle. Every year, thousands of small and, frequently, middle-sized and large companies, unable to withstand the onslaught of the giant corporations, are ruined, broken up and absorbed by bigger companies. As noted in the New Programme of the Communist Party of the USA: "Monopoly exacts its toll from small business and even from the larger non-monopoly capitalists. Using its superior economic resources in ruthless competition, employing its control over credits and prices, obtaining favours from government at the expense of small business, monopoly capital drives thousands of small and not-so-small businesses to bankruptcy and menaces the existence of others.''^^1^^
Concentration of capital and centralisation of production are furthered to a large extent by the accelerated introduction of new machines and techniques into production. Technological progress, and particularly advances in the field of automation, all of which the big monopolies are able to apply in their operations, lend even greater impetus to the process wherein small and .middle-sized companies, unable to compete with the monopolies, go under or are absorbed. It is no accident that the number of company mergers and absorptions, especially in sectors with a high level of automation, went up sharply since the mid-1950s, that is, since the beginning of a period of relatively wider use of cybernetics, electronic computers and automatic control systems in the economy.
Federal Trade Commission figures show that in 1950 there were 219 mergers in the manufacturing and extractive industries. The number grew to 844 in 1960, to about 1,000 in 1966 and exceeded 2,400 in 1968^^2^^. In the ten-year period between 1955 and 1965, each of the 500 largest corporations on Fortune magazine's list (with the exception of 14) absorbed over 100 other companies.^^3^^ It should be borne in mind, _-_-_
~^^1^^ New Program of the Communist Party, USA, New Outlook Publishers, New York, 1970, p. 17.
~^^2^^ The American Federationist, May 1969, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Fortune, July 15, 1966, p. 2.
14 however, that this did not always involve only small companies. In the period from 1962 through 1969, for example, 110 of the 500 biggest corporations on the Fortune list disappeared as a result of mergers. In 1968 alone, 26 of the largest 500 corporations were taken over by others.^^1^^The fate of Spencer Chemical---which had assets of $106 million and was one of the 500 giant US corporations---may serve as an illustration of the present trend in the concentration of capital through absorptions and mergers. In 1962, Spencer Chemical absorbed twelve smaller companies, but a year later, it merged with Gulf Oil, the eighth largest corporation in the United States, with assets of $4,200 million.^^2^^ Numerous examples of this kind clearly illustrate Lenin's conclusion that the old struggle between small and big capital is being resumed at a new and immeasurably higher stage when big companies fall into the same category as small ones.^^3^^
The basic trend now, as the rate of concentration of capital continues to increase, is the formation of conglomerate corporations. These giant diversified amalgamations arise as a result of mergers involving companies with no rational production ties between themselves and producing unrelated products. In 1968, over 90 per cent of the mergers of large companies (with assets exceeding $10 million) gave rise to conglomerates composed of completely heterogeneous companies.^^4^^
Among the most characteristic conglomerates is International Telephone and Telegraph, which runs the telephone system in 123 countries and at the same time rents automobiles, publishes books, builds houses, bakes bread, operates hotels and motels, etc.^^5^^ Another corporation, Textron, which originally manufactured only synthetic and woollen fabrics, now has 27 branches and 113 factories which put out helicopters, chicken feed, saws, fibre-glass boats, bathroom fixtures, lawn mowers, linseed oil and dozens of other kinds of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Labour, July 5, 1969.
~^^2^^ Political Affairs, August 1964, p. 62.
~^^3^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 224.
~^^4^^ Financial Times, April 8, 1969.
~^^5^^ International Telephone & Telegraph Annual Report, 1968, p. 5; The New Republic, February 22, 1969, p. 15.
15 goods.^^1^^ The following table shows how rapidly the assets of these conglomerates grow.^^2^^ Assets (in million dollars) ( 'oinpHiiy I'.ifi/i 1SMJ5 IDlid 19«7 1W1K International Telephone & Telegraph 1 542 1 783 2 121 2 761 4 067* Ling- Tenico - V ought 323 336 468 1 833 2 770 Litton ............. 086 916 1 172 1 562 1 855 Textron 720 851 1 132 1 446 1 704 Gulf & Western Industries . . . 117 182 317 644 1,314 * In 1969, International Telephone & Telegraph absorbed the large Hartford Fire Insurance Company, as a result of which IT&T's assets swelled by 50 per cent, going over $6,000 million. (Time, October 31, 1969, p. 54.)The mergers that took place in the 1960s and especially the creation of conglomerates accelerated the rate of centralisation of capital and increased the economic and political influence of a handful of monopolies on the country's destiny even more. It is noteworthy that in late 1968, even President Johnson's Cabinet Committee on Price Stability had to admit that the wave of mergers was leading to such a centralisation of economic power that the "competitive, free enterprise economy" could end up being seriously undermined, and that the mergers could "threaten traditional American social and political values".^^3^^ Fortune, a magazine for American business circles, has predicted that if the trend in mergers and concentration continues to develop at the same rapid rate, small and middle independent companies will disappear in a matter of ten years, leaving but 200 big companies, all of which will be conglomerates.
As it amasses power and gains control over broad sectors of the American economy, the monopoly oligarchy rakes in fabulous profits. According to American sources, the top 500 US companies showed an increase of 86 per cent in clear profit during the period from 1960 through 1967, as _-_-_
~^^1^^ Monthly Review, April 1966, pp. 49--50.
~^^2^^ Financial 'Times, April 8, 1969.
~^^3^^ 'flic New Republic, February 22, 1969, p. 14.
16 compared with a total increase in profits (after taxes) of 80 per cent by all companies over the same period.^^1^^ Fortune magazine has computed that the profits of these 500 companies accounted for 73.7 per cent of the profits of all American companies in 1969, and 74.8 per cent in 1970.^^2^^ Moreover, the profits of ten giant monopolies amounted to $6,500 million, or over 30 per cent of the profits of the 500 leading corporations.^^3^^Such monopoly giants as General Motors, Standard Oil of New Jersey, American Telephone & Telegraph, General Electric, Ford Motor, Texaco, International Business Machines, Sacony Mobil Oil and others continually make record profits. American Telephone & Telegraph, for example, nets clear profits exceeding the revenues of 13 of the United states put together. Other big US corporations are not far behind.
It should be noted that profit figures usually do not include the large incomes of corporation officials---the top managers. According to official figures for 1962, of the total number of managers working for the 19 largest American companies, six received annual salaries of over $500,000 each, 12 got from $375,000 to $500,000, and 28 made from $250,000 to $375,000. Fifty-six managers and top administrators of General Motors received a total of $15.7 million in salaries and bonusesthai is, more than the aggregate annual salaries of 606 of the highest paid government officials. In 1969, as a further example, Chairman of the Board of Directors of General Motors Corporation James M. Roche received $790,000 in the form of salary and other remuneration; Chairman of the Board of Directors of Ford Motor, multimillionaire Henry Ford received $515,000 (in addition to $3 million received in dividends); and the average annual income of Chairman of the Board of Directors of Chrysler Corporation Lynn Townsend between 1963 and 1969 amounted to $429,000.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Economic Notes, April 1967, p. 4; February 1969, p. 10; Fortune, July 1961, p. 184; June 15, 1968, p. 204.
~^^2^^ Fortune, May 1971, p. 171.
~^^3^^ Ibid., pp. 172--78.
~^^4^^ Proceedings. Twenty-Second Constitutional Convention. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), April 20--24, 1970, Atlantic Git/, New Jersey, p. 27.
17As monopoly capital continues to increase its economic might and rake in fabulous profits, it makes every effort to conceal its exploiting role in the society and its undivided power over the country's corporations. One theory in vogue and designed to satisfy modern capitalism's acute need for protective camouflage is the theory of so-called people's capitalism. The essence of the theory boils down to saying that as capitalism develops, property becomes ``democratised'', that ownership of the means of production increasingly passes into the hands of millions of stockholders---workers and other wage earners---and that they, that is, these stockholders, are owners just as much as the capitalists themselves.
Just how unconvincing and far from the truth such pseudo-scientific allegations are can be seen from the caustic criticism levelled at them not only by Left-wing organisations and the labour unions, but by a good number of bourgeois writers. The myth about the ``democratisation'' of property and about the transformation of small and middle stockholders into "co-owners of corporations" has been exploded more than once by data published in the American press. It has been pointed out, for example, that although 17 million people were stockholders in early 1960s, 98.4 per cent of them, or 16,725,000 people, owned only 20 per cent of the total number of shares, while a small group of less than 275,000 people, or 1.6 per cent of all stockholders, controlled 80 per cent of all existing shares, valued at $320,000 million.^^1^^
A thorough analysis of statistical data on the distribution of share capital among the various categories of stockholders enabled well-known American economist Ferdinand Lundberg to conclude that practically all companies---big, middle and small---are controlled by a few powerful families. It is apparent, writes Lundberg, "... that from two to three up to twenty of the largest stockholders own very large to total percentage of the companies'', and that "concentration of ownership and control in a few hands is a built-in feature of the American economy".^^2^^
This small group of real owners of share capital need _-_-_
~^^1^^ The International Teamster, December 1964, p. 30.
~^^2^^ Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and Super-Rich, New York, 1968, p. 203.
__PRINTERS_P_17_COMMENT__ 2---84 18 possess only a ten per cent block of shares, and in many cases even less, in order to effect control over a bank or corporation. Multimillionaire Richard Mellon, for example, requires only 2.98 per cent of the ALCOA stock to maintain effective control of that aluminium company, and 1.78 per cent of the stock to control Gulf Oil.^^1^^As for how much the working people of America participate in share capital, figures for 1965 show that the aggregate share of workers and farmers among all stockholders did not exceed 3 per cent.^^2^^ This, then, is what the economic ``partnership'' between labour and capital under what the apologists of capitalism called "people's capitalism" really looks like.
The growing concentration of capital and production and the continuing increase in power of the monopolies took place with the active assistance of the Democratic Administration, whose domestic policy was directed toward broadening the sphere of government regulation in the economy and reflected the further development of state-monopoly capitalism. "With the direct help of the government,'' Gus Hall noted at the 18th National Convention of the Communist Party of the USA, "there is taking place an unprecedented polarisation of wealth and monopoly control of finance and industry. With the direct intervention of the government our country's economic life is being totally directed into channels that serve the profit interests of the top money lords. State power is increasingly a direct economic factor, a powerful instrument for guaranteeing maximum profits to the biggest monopolies at the expense of the workers, the Negro, Puerto Rican and Mexican-American peoples, the small farmers and small businessmen.''^^3^^
Government measures during both Democratic and Republican administrations undertaken in accordance with recommendations coming directly from monopoly groups _-_-_
~^^1^^ Fortune, June 15, 1967, p. 180.
~^^2^^ Problems of Present-Day Imperialism, Moscow, 1968, p. 45 (in Russian).
~^^3^^ Gus Hall, For a Radical Change---the Communist View. (Report and Concluding Remarks to the 18th National Convention, Communist Party, USA, June 22--26, 1966, New Outlook Publishers, New York, 1966, p. 18.)
19 have been aimed at ensuring additional privileges to big capital. Sonic of the major steps taken were to increase equipment depreciation allowances, reduce corporate taxes, establish a ``partnership'' in the fields of atomic energy and space communications, provide for subsidies and grants to various companies, grant billion dollar subsidies to large farmer-capitalists to support prices on agricultural products, etc.The basic channel through which, with government help, unprecedented profits flow to the leading monopolies is that of defence orders, made against a background of an unrestrained arms race and the militarisation of the entire American society. As pointed out in the Programme of the CPSU, "state-monopoly capitalism stimulates militarism to an unheard-of degree. The imperialist countries maintain immense armed forces even in peacetime. Military expenditures devour an ever-growing portion of the state budgets. The imperialist countries are turning into militaristic, military-police states. Militarisation pervades the life of bourgeois society.''^^1^^ This characterisation of the imperialist states is especially applicable to the USA, where the government's involvement in the country's economy is predominantly of a militaristic nature.
The post-war period saw a steady growth in the militarisation of the US economy through which monopoly capital strove to strengthen the capitalist economic system and guarantee high profits for itself. In recent years, the growing power of giant military-industrial corporations and their enormous influence not only on the economic but also on the political life of the country have assumed such dangerous proportions that even some spokesmen of the ruling circles have been forced to voice their anxiety.
Notable in this connection was former President Dwight Eisenhower's statement made on nationwide television on January 17, 1961, that "American democracy" was being threatened by a new enormous force---the military-industrial complex. "The total influence---" Eisenhower said, " economic, political, even spiritual---is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. . .. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Roud to Communism, Part I, Moscow, p. 474.
20 whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. . . ."^^1^^ This statement by a former president and general and obedient servant of big business shows how far the merger of government and monopoly power has gone and how deeply militarism has entrenched itself in the country.The power and influence of the American military-- industrial complex steadily increased in the 1960s, as evidenced by statistics on direct military spending.^^2^^
Fiscal Year Direct Defence Spending (million dollars) 1961 47,383 1962 51,097 1963 52,257 1964 53,591 1965 49,578 1966 56,785 1967 70,081 1968 80,516 1969 81,240 1970 (est.) 79,432As can be seen from the table above, the US Department of Defence budget has shown a sharp increase in recent years. But it should be borne in mind that the government does not include in the category of "defence spending" any appropriation for the needs of the Atomic Energy Commission or the space programme, which are of a sharply expressed military character. If we take these portions of the budget for the 1970 fiscal year into account, the total sum allotted for military purposes and for programmes connected with them amounted to $84,300 million (approximately 43 per cent of the expenditure part of the federal budget).
The US military machine has grown to gigantic proportions. In 1961, material property at the Pentagon's disposal was valued at $164,800 million; by 1970, this figure had reached $200,000 million, which amounted to over one half of all US Government property both within and outside the country.^^3^^ Land placed at the disposal of the US Defence Department exceeds the combined areas of the states of Rhode _-_-_
~^^1^^ D. Eisenhower, Waging Peace. 1956--1961, New York, 1965, p. 616.
~^^2^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1070, p. 247.
~^^3^^ Congressional Record, July 24, 1970, p. Si2090.
21 Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Vermont and New Hampshire. The Pentagon purchases almost 15 per cent of the industrial goods produced in the USA. The US Government buys for ``defence'' needs the greater part of the country's output of missiles, communications equipment, electronic and other instruments and devices, ships, etc.The 1960s were unprecedented boom years for corporations specialising in armaments production. Government armaments contracts almost doubled between 1960 and 1969 (from $22,500 million to $42,300 million),^^1^^ with the lion's share of defence orders going to a small group of the bigger corporations. The Pentagon annually concludes about 2,500,000 contracts with about 18,000 American corporations. About one-third of these, as a rule, fall into the hands of the ten leading armaments monopolies.^^2^^
The extent to which defence orders are profitable for the monopolies can be seen from the fact that for many years the average rate of profit of the 15 corporations, which according to Defence Department figures are the basic producers of military goods for the government, substantially exceeded the rate of profit of the country's 500 largest industrial corporations.^^3^^ In 1968, for example, the profits of the arms suppliers were approximately 70 per cent higher than the average profits of other types of companies.^^4^^ Between 1964 and 1966, according to figures compiled by progressive American economist Victor Perlo, industrial corporation profits showed an increase of $10,000 million, or 25.8 per cent, while the profits of industries producing for the war in Vietnam during that same period went up by 56 to 176 per cent.^^5^^ An official government study of Defence _-_-_
^^1^^ US News & World Report, April 21, 1969, p. 61.
~^^2^^ In 1968, for example, 100 big corporations handled nearly twothirds (67.4 per cent) of the country's entire defence production, with ten of these accounting for one-third of this total output (The New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1969).
~^^3^^ Victor Perlo, Militarism and Industry. Arms Profiteering in the Missile Age, International Publishers, New York, 1963, p. 32.
~^^4^^ William McGaffin and Erwin Knoll, Scandal in the Pentagon. A Challenge to Democracy, Greenwich, Conn., Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1969, p. 16.
~^^5^^ Victor Perlo, The Vietnam Profiteers, New Outlook Publishers, New York, 1966, p. 29.
22 Department contracts with 146 firms showed that some of the companies involved, particularly those filling orders for ammunition and aircraft and missile equipment (for the war in Vietnam) made profits as high as 240 per cent.^^1^^Heading the list of corporations getting fat on the dirty war against the people of Vietnam is General Dynamics. In the fiscal year of 1968 it received orders totalling $2,239 million for the production of military aircraft, atomic assault submarines, various kinds of missiles and other armaments for the US armed forces; in 1964, it had contracts amounting to a total of $1,455 million.^^2^^
Number two on the list is Lockheed Aircraft, whose orders for fighter aircraft, jet cargo planes, missiles, warships and other armaments amounted to $1,870 million in 1968, or $883 million more than in 1964.^^3^^
Along with the corporations specialising in armaments, many other monopolies that had formerly operated almost exclusively in the sphere of civilian production have also cashed in on the arms race programme and particularly on the war in Vietnam. Thus, the country's biggest corporation, American Telephone and Telegraph, recorded $776 million worth of orders in 1968, taking sixth place among the corporations filling Pentagon orders; Textron's orders amounted to $501 million, and Ford Motor's---$381 million.^^4^^
Escalation of the war in Vietnam and increased military spending was accompanied by a marked reduction in budget allocations for civilian needs. As it sought additional money for military needs, the US Government annually reduced the federal budget allocations for public health, education, social welfare, transportation, etc., economising primarily by cutting appropriations for social programmes designed to alleviate the situation of the working people.
The unrestrained increase in military spending accelerates the further strengthening of the monopolies' positions and enhances their power and control over the country's entire economic and political life. At the same time, the arms race _-_-_
~^^1^^ The New York Times, March 18, 1971.
~^^2^^ US News & World Re/tort, April 21, 1969, p. 63; Labor Fact Book, No. 17, p. 58.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
^^4^^ US News & World Report, April 21, 1969, p. 63.
23 ultimately has a negative effect on the overall condition of the economy as it gives rise to inflation, devaluation of the dollar, a higher and higher cost of living, a dangerous increase in the national debt and a balance of payments deficit.The militaristic fever which has been consuming enormous resources impinges above all on the interests of the working people and exposes the demagogy of the high-sounding social programmes that have been announced to the American people by their government in recent years. As a consequence, noted the well-known American columnist, Walter Lippmann, social contradictions have come to the fore all the more noticeably and conflicts between labour and capital have become aggravated, "The surpluses of an expanding economy,'' Lippmann said, "have been swallowed up and this has removed the lubricants and the cushions against the conflicts of the interests and the rivalry of ideologies. We are moving more and more into sharp and raw confrontations. This is the tragic consequence of one of the most serious miscalculations in our history.''^^1^^
__ALPHA_LVL2__ INTENSIFIED EXPLOITATION OF THE WORKING MANThe past decade saw the steadily intensified exploitation of the American working people. In its efforts to extract maximum profits, make American goods more competitive on the world markets and continue the arms race, monopoly capital has trodden heavily on the vital interests of the working class and all strata of working people in America.
At the same time, the monopolists use their propaganda machine to cover up the growing social contrasts and class antagonisms in present-day America. The relatively high standard of living enjoyed by the working people of the USA, as compared with other capitalist countries---won as a result of many years of persistent struggle by the working class---is proclaimed by the ideologists of the monopoly bourgeoisie to be the consequence of capitalism's " philanthropic mission'', the result of the transformation of a bourgeois country into a "welfare state''.
_-_-_^^1^^ World Journal Tribune, December 29, 1966.
24Thus, proponents of the socio-demagogic theory of the "welfare state'',---Alvin Hansen, M. Reder, Simon Kuznets, L. O. Kelso, M. J. Adler and many others---contend that in the last decades, allegedly as a result of a modernisation of the capitalist society, the standard of living of the population has been lifted "to undreamed-of levels of comfort and luxury'', a "high standard of living for all households has become a morally approved objective'', and "mass poverty has largely been wiped out".^^1^^ All this, these writers say, is the result of the fact that the US Government is engaged primarily in the redistribution of income in favour of the working people and does everything to promote their greater welfare and prosperity. Manipulating average standard-of-living indicators, those who advance such theories deliberately, and for quite understandable reasons, ignore the fact that so-called ``prosperity'' and ``affluence'' are in no way applicable to large categories of low-paid wage earners, to the huge army of the unemployed, to indigent agricultural workers, or to working people living in the country's poverty regions.
The facts of real life expose the falsity of any talk about "universal prosperity" under the present socio-economic system and force even the US Government to admit the existence of mass poverty.
The ways and means by which the mighty monopolies intensify exploitation are varied. They include production automation and modernisation, layoffs and increasing labour intensification, reduction of highly paid jobs, rising taxes and prices and reduction of the working people's real incomes, curtailing spending on social welfare and social insurance, infringing on the working people's right to strike, etc. The working people's situation has observably worsened in recent years as a result of this fresh onslaught against their rights by big business.
The most acute problem in the USA after the Second World War has been unemployment, which has become an inseparable part of the "American way of life''. "The _-_-_
~^^1^^ Alvin H. Hansen, '[he, American Economy, New York, 1957, pp. 132, 149; L. O. Kelso, M. J. Adler, The Capitalist Manifesto, New York, 1958, p. 171.
25 bourgeois myth of 'full employment' has proved to be sheer mockery,'' the Programme of the CPSU has pointed out, "for the working class is suffering continuously from mass unemployment and insecurity.''^^1^^The dynamics of unemployment may be seen in the following table.^^2^^
Year Gainfully employed population (mil. people) Number of unemployed (mil. people) Unemployment, per cent of gainfully employed 1947 59.4 2 3 3.9 1948 60.6 2.3 3.8 1949 61.3 3.6 5.9 1950 62.2 3.3 5.3 1951 62.0 2.0 3.3 1952 62.1 1.9 3.0 1953 63.0 1.8 2.9 1954 63.6 3.5 5 5 1955 65.0 2.9 4.4 1956 66.6 2.8 4.1 1957 66.9 2.9 4.3 1958 67.6 4.6 6.8 1959 68.4 . 3.7 5.5 1960 69.6 3.9 5.5 1961 70.4 4.7 6.7 1962 70.6 3.9 5.5 1963 71.8 4.1 5.7 1964 73.1 3.8 5.2 1965 74.5 3.4 4.5 1966 75.8 2.9 3.8 1967 77.3 3.0 3.8 1968 78.7 2.8 3.6 1969 80.7 2.8 3.5 1970 82.7 4.1 4.9The data presented above show that there has been no clearly defined tendency towards a drop in unemployment, either in absolute figures or in the percentage of gainfully employed.
A characteristic feature of the US unemployment picture after the Second World War was that after each recession the number of unemployed grew, and even officially _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Road to Communism, Part I, p. 475.
~^^2^^ Monthly Labor Review, April 1971, p. 89.
26 proclaimed economic ``prosperity'' did not bring unemployment down to the level prior to the recession. The number of unemployed in 1952--1953 was 1.8 million (2.9 per cent of the gainfully employed population); after the crisis of 1953-- 1954, it stood at 2.9 million (4.4 per cent). After the 1957-- 1958 recession, the ``backbone'' of unemployment grew even more---to 3.7 million people (5.5 per cent), and in another two years, following the crisis of 1960--1961, it jumped to 4 million people (5.7 per cent). In early January 1961, the Kennedy Administration promised to reduce unemployment from 6.6 to 4 per cent. Despite the fact that unemployment did drop over the next few years, it remained considerably above the promised level throughout the period in which the New Frontiers course was being followed.President Johnson admitted in early 1965, that unemployment was still the number one problem. Between 1965 and 1969, unemployment dropped below the 5 per cent level for the first time since 1957. But despite the relatively higher level of employment, the actual number of unemployed in the 1961--1968 period averaged 3.6 million persons, compared to an average of 3.3 million between 1953 and 1960. The somewhat higher employment since 1965 was primarily the result of an increase in the size of the armed forces and the sharp increase in military orders connected with the escalation of the Vietnam war.
In 1964, the armed forces personnel numbered 2.7 million men, while in 1968, this figure went up to 3.5 million,^^1^^ an increase of 29.6 per cent. Analysing the effect of the Vietnam war on the US economy, Business Week magazine wrote the following in October 1966: "In labour markets, Vietnam is soaking up additions to manpower at a remarkable clip. The number of men over 20 either working or seeking work has held level over the past 12 months. At the same time, the armed forces have taken over 40 per cent of the total increase in workers ... so far this year.''^^2^^
Defence industries as well as the armed forces themselves require more and more new workers. From July 1965 through October 1966, the aircraft industry increased its labour force _-_-_
~^^1^^ Economic Notes, February 1969, p. 2.
~^^2^^ Business Week, October 22, 1966, p. 123.
27 by 32 per cent, the communications industry (producing primarily for the Defence Department) by 16 per cent, the arms manufacturing industry---by 35 per cent.^^1^^ On the whole, the number of people working in war production between 1963 and 1968 grew from 2.4 million to 5.4 million. According to official figures for 1968, the total number of persons employed in ``defence'' production and in the armed forces was approximately 9 million, or more than 11 per cent of the gainfully employed population.^^2^^ In mid-1969, the situation on the labour market began to take a sharp turn for the worse as a result of the onset of another recession. Cutbacks in production, increased under-capacity operations and total shutdowns in a number of industries aggravated the employment problem. During 1970, unemployment went up 58 per cent, from 3.1 million to 4.9 million, and the average unemployment rate for the year was 4.9 per cent, as compared with 3.5 per cent in 1969.^^3^^ According to Department of Labour figures, the number of unemployed went up to 6 per cent in December 1970, and to 6.2 per cent in May 1971. Unemployment had reached the highest level since the December 1961 recession.^^4^^A characteristic feature of the unemployment picture for 1969--1971 was that workers in all skill categories were hit, as well as office workers, engineers and scientific specialists. The number of unemployed white collar workers in early 1971 grew to 3.7 per cent, the highest level in the 13 years since separate statistics for this category of workers have been kept.^^5^^
Hardest hit, however, were workers directly involved in material production. There was a noticeable drop in the number of industrial workers employed in the ferrous metal, chemical, rubber, machine building, automobile and aircraft, and radio and electronics industries. By the end of 1970, the per cent of "redundant people" among industrial workers was 1.5 times higher than the average in the country, and among construction workers, it was 2.3 times higher.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Ibid., p. 131.
~^^2^^ Economic Notes, February 1969, p. 2.
~^^3^^ AFL-CIO News, January 16, 1971.
~^^4^^ Daily World, June 5, 1971.
~^^5^^ Newsweek, January 18, 1971, p. 46.
28It should be remembered, however, that government figures considerably understate the real scope of unemployment. Official statistics deliberately ignore many important factors without which the real picture of unemployment turns out markedly distorted. In a Saturday Evening Post article, American sociologist Ben Bagdikian showed how the real extent of unemployment is underestimated.
``The national statistics on the jobless,'' explained Bagdikian, "come from a monthly questioning of 35,000 households in 701 counties. The 550 interviewers for the Bureau of the Census are under strict orders to stick to the precise wording of their questionnaire. For every person over 14 who is not in school or disabled, there are two crucial questions:
``1. 'Did you do any work at all last week, not counting work around the house?'
``If the answer is `No', the next question is:
``2. 'Were you looking for work?'
``If the answer is `Yes', the person is counted as unemployed in the statistics.
``If by `looking' he thinks the questionnaire meant physically active in a search, or if he gave up looking during the week, then he answers `No', and he is not counted.
``The President's Council of Economic Advisers thinks there are 'a million or more' who . . . are out of work and wish to work but who don't get into the statistics.''^^1^^
Such methods of counting the unemployed, say the authors of a manifesto put out by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution, "ignore the fact that many men and women who would like to find jobs have not looked for them because they know there are no employment opportunities. Underestimates for this reason are pervasive among groups whose unemployment rates are high---the young, the old and racial minorities.''^^2^^
A special study carried out by the Department of Labour in 1966 showed that in the slums of large US cities alone there are about 150,000 blacks between the ages of 25 and 64 who are not registered as jobless. Having lost all hope _-_-_
~^^1^^ Saturday Evening Post, December 18, 1965, pp. 36, 38.
~^^2^^ The Triple Revolution. By the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution, Santa Barbara, California, 1964, p. 8.
29 of finding any kind ol a job, they have simply stopped looking.^^1^^US statistics do not take into account the partially unemployed, nor anyone who had a temporary job for as little as one hour in the course of a week. Yet, in 1965, for example, the number of people working from 1 to 14 hours a week never went below the 3 million mark. According to the figures for February 1966, approximately 25 per cent of the working people in the United States were working less than 40 hours a week, and 6.4 per cent of them were working less than 14 hours a week. None of these people were reflected in the unemployment statistics.
Despite the fact that unemployment in the country is obviously underestimated, the US monopoly circles, and above all the National Association of Manufacturers, have in recent years launched a campaign to re-examine the current method of measuring unemployment, contending that it has "steadily been altered to magnify the unemployment problem"^^2^^ and "distorts the actual condition".^^3^^
Heeding this criticism, the Kennedy Administration attempted to find an automatic ``solution'' to the unemployment problem by changing the existing methods of measurement.^^4^^ However, a government committee composed of six wellknown economists charged with determining whether official statistics overestimate the real scope of unemployment came to exactly the opposite conclusion. Their report, "Measuring Employment and Unemployment'', submitted to the government in the fall of 1962, pointed out that in many instances official figures underestimate the level of unemployment, sometimes by as much as 40 per cent. The committee's report noted, for example, that in February 1961, 940,000 persons were registered as, employed on the basis that they had worked from one to four hours during the week covered in the survey.^^5^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Congressional Record, September 12, 1966, p. 21377.
~^^2^^ The Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 1965.
~^^3^^ The Watt Street Journal, May 18, 1965.
^^4^^ The Christian Science Monitor, June 10, 1965.
~^^5^^ President's Committee to Appraise Employment and Unemployment Statistics. "Measuring Employment and Unemployment'', Washington, D. C., Government Printing Office, 1962, p. 46.
30The extent to which actual unemployment goes higher than rellceted in official government statistics can be seen from the following. Department of Labour figures for 1962 showed the average number of unemployed for the year to be slightly less than 4 million. But if we take into account the time lost by the 2.3 million people not working a full week and the 700,000 jobless who were not looking for work because it was hopeless to find it, then the real number of unemployed would have stood at 5.7 million, or 40 per cent higher than indicated in Department of Labour reports.^^1^^ A similar calculation made in 1965 by the California State Department of Finance showed that the state's unemployment level was 11.7 per cent, that is, over twice as high as indicated by the official Department of Labour figures for California.^^2^^ Nation-wide, this would indicate that in the spring of 1965 there were 6 million and not 3 million unemployed in the United States.
It has been repeatedly proclaimed in official statements by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon that the government's goal is to "abolish unemployment" and to "achieve full employment''. Just what the ruling circles of America mean by these terms, however, is quite vague. Unemployment, we all know, is a "condition of existence of the capitalist mode of production'',^^3^^ and to actually abolish it would by no means be in the interests of the monopoly bourgeoisie. Under the capitalist system, therefore, the "struggle for full employment" is aimed only at somewhat reducing the acuteness of unemployment, at preventing it from turning into an explosive social problem, but at the same time keeping it at a level high enough to fulfil the function of providing a reserve army of labour.
Many US, economists who reflect the monopolies' interest in having a permanent army of unemployed frankly state that the government should not strive to wipe it out completely. According to Columbia University Professor Arthur F. Burns, who was appointed by President Nixon to be President of the Federal Reserve Board, the absence of _-_-_
~^^1^^ Labor Fact Hook, No. 16, p. 24.
~^^2^^ The New York 'limes Magazine, October 24, 1965, n. 48.
~^^3^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, p. 632.
31 unemploymcnt would be undesirable lor the society since it would limit the freedom of the labour force and the employers' opportunity to select workers.Quite typical also is the assertion made by Joseph M. Becker, William Haber and Sar A. Levitan of the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research that unemployment is a consequence of the capitalist system's ``progressive'' nature. "... It would, of course, be preferable to prevent unemployment entirely,'' wrote Becker, Haber and Levitan in their joint study. "But for several reasons a modern industrial society must realistically expect to experience some unemployment at all times and must be prepared for occasional heavy unemployment. First of all, the task of preventing unemployment is enormously complex---involving, as it does, all major economic, political, and educational activities--- and it is simply beyond our power to perform the task perfectly. Furthermore, the economy of the United States is characterised by a high degree of dynamic change, the inevitable concomitant of progress and of freedom. Both characteristics make for some unemployment, more unemployment than if our society were less progressive and less free.''^^1^^
Many American economists think along these lines. However, there is some disagreement as to the "acceptable level" of unemployment at which "full employment" may be considered to have been reached. Professor Joel Seidman, for example, feels that the figure should be 2 per cent,^^2^^ while eminent economist Milton Friedman, who is close to the leading circles of the Republican Party (he was the chief economics adviser during Goldwater's presidential campaign in 1964, and in Nixon's 1968 campaign), pushed the " acceptable level" of unemployment to 5.5 per cent.^^3^^ The prevailing opinion among American economists, however, is that full _-_-_
~^^1^^ Joseph M. Becker, William Habcr, Sar A. Levitan, Programs to Aid the Unemployed in the 1960s. Published by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, Michigan, January 1965, p. 1.
^^2^^ Joel Seidman, "Poverty in America and What Might Be Done About It'', Economic, Political and Psychological Aspects of Employment. Proceedings of a Symposium on Employment, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado, May 22--23, 1964, p. 0.
^^3^^ Economic Notes, April 1969, p. 1.
32 employment will have been achieved ii the number of unemployed stands at 4 per eent of the country's work force. Many supporters of this completely groundless criterion (for example, University of Chicago Professor Albert Rees) allow for the possibility that "full employment" may in the future be compatible with an even higher rate of unemployment, since "demographic changes in the years ahead will make a 4 per cent rate increasingly difficult to attain.''^^1^^Analogous thinking underlies the economic policy of the US Government. In the 1950s, government circles felt that if the rate of unemployment did not go over 2 per cent, this could be considered as "full employment''; in 1961, this `` acceptable'' limit was raised to 4 per cent.^^2^^
This latter rate was also officially proclaimed as `` acceptable'' by the Republican Administration in 1969.^^3^^ In 1970-- 1971, however, when unemployment figures soared (as a direct result of President Nixon's economic policy which had programmed in a growth of unemployment as an `` inevitable'' consequence of anti-inflationary measures), the Republican Administration discarded its previously held theory that an unemployment rate of 4 per cent is "the equivalent of full employment in a prosperous economy''. This widely accepted view, said Secretary of Commerce John Connally in July 1971, was a ``myth'', "and such a rate had never been achieved in the past 25 years except in war".^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ Albert Rees, "The Dimensions of the Employment Problem Now and for the Foreseeable Future''. Proceedings of a Symposium on Employment Sponsored by the American Bankers Association, Washington, February 24, 1964, p. 21.
~^^2^^ First National City Bank. Monthly Economic Letter, January 1965, p. 3.
~^^3^^ As reported in Time magazine, in October 1969, at a sitting of the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, Secretary of the Treasury in the Republican Administration David Kennedy was asked "whether the current 4 per cent unemployment rate was 'acceptable or unacceptable'. Ignoring a prepared statement that a staffer hastily handed to him, Kennedy replied with more candour than tact: 'Under present circumstances, it is acceptable.' " (Time, October 17, 1969, p. 60.) In the days that followed, however, despite persistent questioning by the press, neither the Secretary of the Treasury nor any other government official clarified just what unemployment rate the government considered unacceptable.
~^^4^^ The Economist, July 10, 1971, p. 52.
33Obviously, then, a definite and moreover a sizeable rate of unemployment in the United States is considered not only normal, but necessary, since it creates additional possibilities for the monopolies to enrich themselves and is a means of eroding the standard of living of the working class and its gains. For the working class, however, and all working people, unemployment means deprivation, hopelessness and immeasurable suffering.
Unemployment as a grave social problem in the 1960s was characterised not only by its continuously high rate, but by its protractedness. Over a period of several years about half of the long-term unemployed were jobless for 27 or more weeks.^^1^^ According to data compiled by New York University Professor Daniel E. Diamond, unemployment went up 40 per cent between 1957 and 1962, while the number of people out of work for 15 weeks or more increased 100 per cent, and the number of those without work for six months or more went up 150 per cent.^^2^^ In the period from April 1970 through April 1971, however, the number of unemployed for 5 to 14 weeks increased by 45 per cent, and the number of jobless for 15 weeks or more showed an increase of 105 per cent.^^3^^
A major factor negatively affecting the employment situation over recent years has been technological and economic advances in US industrial production and, above all, the widespread introduction of automation. "Improvement in technology, signifying increased labour productivity and greater social wealth,'' Lenin wrote, "becomes in bourgeois society the cause of greater social inequality, of widening gulfs between the rich and poor, of greater insecurity, unemployment, and various hardships of the mass of the working people.''^^4^^ The past 15 years have provided fresh evidence of the hardships that technological progress imposes on the working class in a society dominated by monopoly capital. Automation cuts down on jobs available in a number of industries, ousting workers from the sphere of production; _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, June 7, 1965, p. 611.
~^^2^^ Challenge, November 1963.
~^^3^^ US News & World Report, April 19, 1971, p. 23.
~^^4^^ V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 101.
__PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3---84 34 moreover, it affects not only industrial workers, but increasingly penetrates into the realm of office work, the banking business, transportation, etc.According to government estimates, automation weekly deprives approximately 35,000 people of their jobs, which amounts to 1,820,000 people a year.^^1^^ Other figures, cited at the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, show that not less than 51,000 jobs are abolished weekly due to automation.^^2^^ "And while figures on how much joblessness automation actually creates are the subject of much debate,'' remarked Newsweek magazine, "the peril is very real for those who lose their livelihood to a machine.... Automation is becoming the most controversial economic concept of the age. Businessmen love it. Workers fear it.''^^3^^
Widespread introduction of new machinery and automation tends to break down former division of labour patterns; it makes many job categories obsolete and thus reduces the rate of employment in the older industries. Many parts of the country where traditional industries had been concentrated have become areas of chronic depression and unemployment.
The impact that technological progress has had on the employment rate is most clearly seen in the industries to which automation came first. President of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America Walter Reuther cited the following facts in this connection at the 19th UAW Constitutional Convention. Between 1947 and 1963, auto production in the USA went up from 4.8 million to 9.1 million, that is, an 89.6 per cent increase. The number of workers employed in the auto industry during the same period, however, dropped from 626,000 to 572,000, i.e., by 8.6 per cent.^^4^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ W. Willard Wirtz, Labor and Public Interest, Harper & Row, Publishers, New York, 1964, p. 147.
~^^2^^ Proceedings of the Fifth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, New York City (New York), Fourth Day---November 19, 1963, p. 67.
~^^3^^ Newsweek, January 25, 1965, p. 73.
~^^4^^ Report of President Walter P. Reuther to the 19th UAW Constitutional Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, March 20--27 1964, Part 2, p. 116.
35The introduction of automation and other technological improvements has also resulted in a sharp decline in the number of workers in the steel industry---from 625,000 in 1955 to 486,000 at the close of 1962.^^1^^ In the textile industry, the work force was cut by 310,000 persons between 1950 and 1964.^^2^^ The coal mining industry employed 600,000 workers in 1947; by the end of 1966, it had 100,000 workers, while the hourly output of coal had doubled.^^3^^ The work force on the country's railroads was more than halved---from 1,400,000 in 1947 to 620,000 in 1967, with a significant increase in the volume of work done per man-hour.^^4^^
Between 1957 and 1962, over 80,000 communications workers and office employees were laid off, despite the rapid development in that industry.^^5^^ The unemployment rate among office workers has risen steadily since 1957; it went up from 2.8 per cent in 1957 to 4.6 per cent in January 1962---which amounts to over 466,000 persons.^^6^^ Similar changes have taken place in other sectors. An especially significant drop in employment has taken place in agriculture.
Another result of structural changes in industry is a growing unevenness in joblessness among the various worker categories. Hardest hit are the unskilled and semi-skilled workers; the unemployment rate in these categories exceeds the overall average by two times and almost by one-third, respectively. An analysis of the US employment structure shows that while there is a multimillion-strong army of unemployed, industry has a constant need for skilled workers and specialists in certain definite fields. "The result is a paradox,'' wrote the magazine US News & World Report in 1968, "unemployed by the millions while jobs go begging.''^^7^^ In his economic report to Congress in 1967, _-_-_
~^^1^^ Political Affairs, May 1963, pp. 18--19.
~^^2^^ Proceedings. Thirteenth Biennial Convention. Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, New York, June 1-5, 1964, p. 240.
~^^3^^ Labor Today, March-April 1968, p. 19.
~^^4^^ The Worker, December 10, 1967.
~^^5^^ Resolutions, 26th Annual Convention, Communications Workers of America, Cleveland, Ohio, June 15--19, 1964, pp. 49--50.
~^^6^^ Marxism Today, July 1963, p. 193.
~^^7^^ US News & World Report, May 13, 1968, p. 50. 3«
36 President Johnson had to admit that the coexistence of vacant jobs and unemployed workers incapable of filling them is a bitter human tragedy and an unforgivable economic waste.^^1^^The structural changes in industry brought about by automation aggravate the already grievous situation of those segments of the US population that are hired to an only insignificant extent for jobs requiring skills. This applies above all to the black population and to youth.
For many years the unemployment rate among blacks has been over twice as high as among whites. The situation is even worse among those unemployed for long periods of time. Between 1960 and 1962, black people made up from 20 to 28 per cent of all Americans out of work for over 15 weeks. At the same time, they comprised only 11 per cent of the total number of employed.^^2^^
The average figures on unemployment among the black population are imposing in and of themselves; however, the situation in the poverty regions and the big city slums is catastrophic. Bureau of Labour Statistics data have indicated that at the beginning of 1971, unemployment among the black population in the poorest districts of 100 large US cities was 11.3 per cent.^^3^^ The situation of the Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and Indians is just as grievous. The unemployment rate for Indians on reservations fluctuates between 40 and 50 per cent.^^4^^
The working youth of America also faces difficult problems. The fact that most young men and women have no special training and the fact that the demand for unskilled labour is steadily falling puts the country's youth in an extremely difficult situation. The unemployment rate among young people has been for many years significantly higher than the unemployment rate among other categories of working people. US Department of Labour statistics bear this out clearly.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Economic Report of the President, Washington, January 1967, p. 18.
~^^2^^ Men Without Work, The Economics of Unemployment, p. 119.
~^^3^^ AFL-CIO News, April 24, 1971.
~^^4^^ Economic, Political and Psychological Aspects of Employment. Profeedings of a Syrnposiiim on Employment, p. 4.
37 Rate of Unemployment Among US Youth, 1967^^1^^ (as a percentage of total labour force) Age and sex Total United States Urban poverty neighbourhoods Total ........... 3 8 6.8 Men ........ 3.1 6.2 16--19 years old ..... 20--24 years old ..... 25 and over . . . 12.3 4.7 2 0 23.5 7.5 4.3 Women . . 5 2 7.7 16--19 years old 13 5 23.5 20--24 years old 7.0 10 1 25 and over 3 7 5 3The number of jobless youth reaches dangerous proportions during periods of seasonal fluctuations in the work force, particularly when every new batch of high school graduates hits the labour market. In the spring of 1965, for example, according to the then Secretary of Labour Willard Wirtz, of the 4.2 million unemployed in the country, 2.2 million, or over half, were between the ages of 16 and 21.^^2^^
However, even these figures do not fully reflect the tragedy afflicting the young. A Department of Labour report published in 1964 admitted that unemployment among teenagers was significantly underestimated. To the 1.2 million officially registered as unemployed in 1963, for example, another 350,000 should be added to include those young people who were not actively seeking work, plus another 350,000 who were partially unemployed.^^3^^ Joblessness among youth also seriously affects the financial position of these families: figures for March 1964 showed that 500,000 teenagers were the primary earners in their families, and 200,000 were the heads of families. The annual family incomes of these two groups were extremely low---less than $2,200 on the average, as compared with a national average of $6,200.^^4^^
In extremely desperate straits are the nation's young black people. Although blacks make up only 15 per cent of the _-_-_
~^^1^^ Monthly Labor Review, August 1968, p. 16.
~^^2^^ The Ncia York Times, May 16, 1965.
^^3^^ Political Affiiirs, August 1964, p. 90.
^^4^^ The New York Times, March 5, 1965.
38 country's youth between the ages of 16 and 21, 30 to 50 per cent of them are not going to school or working. A special nation-wide survey has shown that in some areas the unemployment rate among black youth reaches 60 to 80 per cent.^^1^^The steadily high rate of unemployment among youth is cause for increasing alarm in the United States. "We waste more than a million kids a year,'' said Judge Mary Conway Kohler of the San Francisco Juvenile Court. "As we once wasted natural gas and forests and topsoil, today we waste our most valuable natural resource---the productive power of young brains and muscles, the creative power of young imaginations and emotions. We waste them because we neither keep them in schools nor give them jobs.''^^2^^
A President's Committee on Youth Employment, appointed by President Kennedy to work out recommendations, said in its report: "To hundreds of thousands of boys and girls between 16 and 21, the problem is immediate and desperate.... Other hundreds of thousands of boys and girls can look forward only to lives of drudgery and intermittent work.... For them the outlook is bleak. Life is empty, with survival the only incentive.''^^3^^
Some American researchers say that unemployment may present an even more alarming problem in the near future. The deteriorating economic situation will bring out even more sharply those social consequences of scientific and technological progress that adversely affect the working people. At the same time, automation will be developed even further, knocking new segments of the working class out of production and reducing the demand for labour power. By the mid-1960s, wrote the Wall Street Journal, automation had reached only 10 per cent of its potential capacity; in the next ten years, the level of automation in US production will go up to 30 per cent.^^4^^
Aware of the increasing anxiety among the working people over the consequences of the broad introduction of automation and other technological innovations into production and _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Teacher Magazine, December 1964, p. 5.
~^^2^^ UAW Solidarity, March 1963.
^^3^^ The New York 'Times, April 25, 1963, p. 1,18.
~^^4^^ From 'The Union Postal Clerk, January 1965, p. 23.
39 fearing further aggravation of class tensions throughout the country, the US Government was forced to admit the gravity of this burning problem. Automation, declared President Kennedy in February 1962, is a very serious problem and is "the major domestic challenge of the 1960s".^^1^^ Responding to demands for decisive measures aimed at abolishing mass unemployment, the Kennedy and then the Johnson administrations undertook a number of legislative measures, among which the following may be singled out: the 1961 Area Redevelopment Act; the 1962 Manpower Development and Training Act, supplemented in December 1963, and extended in April 1965 to 1968; the 1964 Economic Opportunity Act; and a programme of legislative measures aimed at achieving the so-called Great Society.The major emphasis in the above legislation was on manpower training and retraining. There were increased appropriations for new job training for workers who had lost their jobs as a result of automation; vocational training with a minimum wage stipend was introduced for certain categories of men---heads of families and unemployed youth between 19 and 21 years of age---as well as vocational training in public high schools and some other educational institutions; so-called Youth Corps were organised to work in nature conservation camps; special job placement centres for youth were set up, etc.
Underlying these government programmes was the notion that all unemployed or semi-unemployed workers could count on finding jobs once they had the necessary training. It is apparent, however, that neither improvements in the educational system nor intensified manpower retraining programmes can create new jobs and thus solve the unemployment problem rooted in the capitalist economy itself.
Although the measures undertaken by the Democratic Administration were a step forward compared to what was done in this direction by the Eisenhower Administration, they were still essentially limited and brought about no radical changes in the system of vocation or general education. Funds earmarked for these goals were clearly insufficient; by far not all unemployed could go through a retraining _-_-_
~^^1^^ Business Week, February 24, 1962. p. 46.
40 programme, and most of those who could, again faced the unsolved problem of where to find a job.Speaking at Brown University on April 6, 1965, George Meany said that it was impossible to solve the automation and unemployment problem through training and education alone. Without a broad economic policy aimed at solving basic economic problems, that is, without a policy for creating jobs, he said, training and education will merely result in the unemployed being better trained and better educated.
The following are some examples of how some retraining programmes actually worked. Of the 431 workers laid off by the Armour meat packaging company in Oklahoma, only 60 were selected for a retraining course. However, only 20 of the 58 workers who completed the course were able to find jobs in their new field.^^1^^ At the same company's Fort Worth plant, 165 of 650 laidoff workers were accepted for retraining. Of these, 117 completed the course, but only 41 could find jobs.^^2^^ Criticising a similar programme of ``assistance'' to the unemployed, President of the International Typographical Union Elmer Brown said in December 1964 that there was no justification for training workers in skills for which there are no job vacancies as this leads to an even greater overproduction of labour power.^^3^^
Other planned measures for job training or retraining, the youth programmes in particular, have upon implementation met with no better success. The programmes, limited in scope and ineffective in their results, became targets for sharp criticism in the country. The New York Times, for example, wrote in December 1964: "Some of the job programmes have met with shallow success, and some have produced cynicism, not excitement, in the people they were designed to serve.''^^4^^
Increasingly trenchant criticism has been levelled in recent years at the present unemployment insurance system. Laws providing for unemployment insurance benefits, enacted back in the 1930s after persistent struggle by the American _-_-_
~^^1^^ William Haber, Louis F. Ferman, James R. Hadson, The Impact of Technological Change, The Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1963, pp. 22--23.
~^^2^^ Detroit Free Press, May 7, 1964.
^^3^^ The Typographical Journal, December 1964.
^^4^^ The New York Times, December 14, 1964.
41 working class, are extremely limited and fail to provide any substantial guarantee against unemployment. "The low incomes of the unemployed,'' wrote The Nation in June 1965, "are attributable in part to low unemployment insurance benefits and the limited duration of those benefits.'' The magazine noted further that ''. .. large numbers of unemployed persons cannot qualify for any type of public income maintenance payments.''^^1^^The existing unemployment insurance system is extremely complicated and confusing. It is governed by laws of the separate states and, in essence, consists of 50 systems, differing from state to state and without national standards. Despite persistent demands by labour unions, the Federal Government has not re-examined the unemployment insurance system for many years, while in the meantime, endless amendments to the state laws have set up many new barriers and limitations.
Not all categories of workers come under the unemployment insurance system. In 1966, for example, while 54.7 million persons were entitled to benefits in the event of unemployment, 16.3 million, or nearly a quarter of all wage workers were not covered by any kind of unemployment insurance.^^2^^ Yet the people in these excluded categories ( agricultural workers, domestic servants, employees of small firms, etc.) are the ones who are in special need of assistance.
Unemployment Insurance Coverage of Wage and Salary Workers for 1966^^3^^ (in million persons) Covered.......................... 54.7 Not covered........................ 16.3 Including: State and local government............... 7.8 Domestic service.................... 2.5 Farm and agricultural processing............ !'> Small firms...................... 1-8 Nonprofit institutions.................. 2.3 Others......................... 0-3 _-_-_~^^1^^ The Nation, June 7, 196.5, pp. 610--11.
^^2^^ The American Fedrritlioitiit, January 1969, p. 15.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
42A worker's being covered by unemployment insurance does not necessarily mean that he will actually receive the insurance benefits if he loses his job. There are always a number of other stipulations besides being out of work that must be met. A laidoff worker must supply evidence that he did not quit of his own volition; that he lost his job for ``valid'' reasons, and not because of ``misdemeanors''; that his state employment agency where he is obliged to register cannot offer him any kind of work. In addition, the unemployed person must supply a detailed description of what he did during the given week to find work, list, for subsequent verification, the addresses and telephone numbers of employers to whom he applied for work, etc. Non-compliance with any of these conditions is sufficient grounds for being denied unemployment benefits.
Because of the existing restrictions, year in and year out less than half of the fully unemployed throughout the country receive unemployment insurance benefits.
Fully Unemployed Not Receiving Unemployment Insurance Benefits, 1957--1966^^1^^ 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 (in per cent) 52 45 53 52 53 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 60 58 61 61 65According to data published in January 1969, the duration of unemployment insurance benefits varies from 22 to 39 weeks, depending on the state, and in most states (41) the limit is 26 weeks.^^2^^ Since the country is afflicted with chronic unemployment, such periods are obviously too short, for many unemployed persons lose their right to benefits long before they find work. In 1967, for example, 19 per cent of the unemployed had stopped receiving benefits even though they had not yet found a job.^^3^^
_-_-_~^^1^^ the American Fcderationist, January 1969, p. 14.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 16.
~^^3^^ Ibid.
43The existing unemployment insurance system fails to satisfy the needs of the unemployed, since the average size of the benefits falls far short of the subsistence minimum as determined by the government. In 1964, 34 states had a minimum weekly benefit of $10 and a maximum of $35 to $55.^^1^^ In 1965, the average weekly unemployment insurance benefits received by unemployed persons amounted to 35 per cent of their normal wages, whereas in the 1930s this figure stood at 50 per cent.^^2^^ It is noteworthy that the states with the lowest wage levels had the lowest benefit rates.
In May 1965, Congress considered a bill revising the unemployment insurance system and, in particular, re-- establishing the benefit rate of 50 per cent of the workers' wages that had existed in 1935.^^3^^ Although the government felt that the measures proposed would "have a stronger stabilising effect on the economy during downturns,"^^4^^ the bill failed to pass. In mid-1970, when the unemployment rate took a sharp upward turn, Congress, after a lengthy debate, approved the Employment Security Act Amendments which extended unemployment insurance coverage to an additional 4.7 million workers not previously covered. The new law also provided for an additional 13 weeks of benefit payments (but not to exceed 39 weeks) if over a period of three months the unemployment rate remained above 4.5 per cent. Interestingly, it was stipulated that this provision (to prolong the duration of benefit payments) was not to come into force immediately, that is, when the unemployment rate topped 4.5 per cent, but only a year and a half later---on January 1, 1972.^^5^^
Propaganda put out by the US monopolies tries to instill the idea that unemployment insurance benefits are already too large, that they should be trimmed in order to create a greater incentive to find work. The monopolies' mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal, declared cynically in October 1964 that the society should not pay the jobless "for doing nothing _-_-_
~^^1^^ 'the Christian Science Monitor, March 15, 1965.
~^^2^^ The Nation, June 1965, p. 611.
^^3^^ The Christian Science Monitor, May 19, 1965.
^^4^^ Ibid.
~^^5^^ US News & World Report, August 17, 1970, p. 82.
44 at all" and that unemployment benefits are nothing other than "compassion paying for idleness".^^1^^ In reply to statements of this kind, the UE News, the newspaper of the progressive United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers Onion, wrote: "Nobody expects to get rich on unemployment compensation and it is no substitute for a job at a living wage. But certainly it is not too much to expect that the most productive workers in the world, laid off in the richest country in the world, should get enough to keep them and their families going until the owners of industry permit them to return to work.''^^2^^Despair and anxiety strike every American worker who finds himself unemployed, and the opportunity to receive compensation or any other kind of assistance cannot allay these feelings. When in 1965 the US Government announced that it intended to shut down the naval shipyard in Brooklyn the industrial accident rate doubled. Shortly after the Hudson Motor Car Company closed its plant, 15 of its former workers committed suicide and the families of over 300 broke up.^^3^^
This dread of unemployment stems from the fact that, having lost their jobs and then their right to any further benefits, workers are deprived of any means of livelihood and find themselves in a hopeless situation.
One unemployed worker from Detroit gave the following description of himself in a letter to The Worker: "I cannot identify myself because I no longer have identity. I used to carry ^many labels: `worker', `man', `husband', `father', `friend', `provider', `neighbour', 'member of the community', to mention only a few. But I no longer hold claim to any of these.
``. . . Now at 50, with a wife and three children to support, the youngest only eight years old, I am expected to fold my hands, go out to pasture. I am healthy and vigorous, my body aches to do an honest day's work, but I find nothing but occasional odd jobs.
``I think I speak for most of my fellow unemployed _-_-_
~^^1^^ Tlif Wall Street Journal, October (i, 1964.
^^2^^ UE News, March 8, 1965.
^^3^^ Saturday Evening Post, December 18, 1965.
45 workers when I say we do not want welfare and once a year handouts. We want jobs.''^^1^^Characteristic of the capitalist mode of production is that the unemployment of one part of the labour force is accompanied by the intensified exploitation of the other. Automation and other technological innovations introduced into production have resulted in marked labour intensification, and work rates have been accelerated to inhuman proportions. The ``dehumanisation'' of working conditions in the USA reached an unprecedented scope in the 1960s.
At a UAW Convention held in March 1964, many delegates told of unbearable working conditions in production. They reported, for example, that hundreds of people suffer from nervous disorders at the Ford plant because they cannot keep up with the furious speed of the conveyor. A resolution adopted at the convention, protesting against the existing speedup system and the employers' attempts to squeeze out high profits at the expense of workers' health and energy, said, in part: "Workers do not give up the right to dignity and self-respect when they punch the time clock, nor do they become the property of the corporations during their working hours. They remain human beings entitled to human treatment.''^^2^^
In the summer of 1967, The Wall Street Journal, which certainly cannot be suspected of being sympathetic towards the working class, described the difficult working conditions at one of the country's newest automobile plants. After working for one week on the plant's assembly line, a reporter for that newspaper wrote about its breakneck speed, about the physical and mental pressure that the workers are under, about the frequent violation of industrial safety regulations, etc. "Working on the line is grueling and frustrating,'' he wrote, "and while it may be repetitive, it's not simple. I learned at first-hand why 250,000 auto workers are unhappy about working conditions. . .. I'm in fairly good physical _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Worker, January 8, 1961, p. 8.
~^^2^^ 19th Constitutional Convention. Proceedings. International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), Atlantic City, New Jersey, March 20--27, 1964, p. 309.
46 shape, hut I ached all over after each day's work on the line. . . . Nobody seemed to take any particular pride in his work. .. .''^^1^^As they speeded up the work process, employers have in recent years also increased their surveillance over the workers, bugging their factories with all kinds of listening, viewing and other control devices. At Ford's large River Rouge plant in Dearborn, for example, various kinds of controllers are used, including former FBI agents, to spy on production and worker output with the help of apparatus (dubbed the "Gestapo Agent" by workers) set up in a special room.^^2^^ Elsewhere, concealed television cameras are widely used. Every time the management feels that some worker is working too slowly, a red light flashes at his place of work.^^3^^ Difficult working conditions, violations of labour safety regulations in industry and agriculture and widespread use of overtime work all result in accelerated wear and tear on the worker's organism, a dangerous increase in industrial accidents and greater incidence of occupational diseases. In 1961, 1,933,000 workers were injured in on-the-job accidents; in 1964, the number grew to 2,050,000 and to 2,200,000 in 1967. The number of fatal industrial accidents is also growing: 13,500 in 1961, 13,700 in 1962, 14,200 in 1963 and again in 1964, and 14,500 each year between 1967 and 1969.^^4^^
The incidence of occupational injuries assumed such catastrophic proportions that the US Department of Labour had to be called on to undertake steps to put an end to the mass murder being committed in industry. According to official figures made public by President Johnson in his State of the Union Message to Congress of January 23, 1968, criminal negligence on the part of employers with respect to worker safety results in an annual $1,500 million loss in wages by workers, 250 million man-days lost and a $5,000 million loss to the country's entire economy.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Wall Street Journal, July 24, 1967.
~^^2^^ The Worker, March 6, 1966.
~^^3^^ Business Week, March 13, 1965, p. 88.
~^^4^^ Labor Fact Book, No. 16, pp. 35--36; No. 17, pp. 37--38; The New York Times, January 24, 1968; AFL-CIO News, April 5, 1969; Time, November 9, 1970, p. 59.
47Industrial accidents not only undermine the workers' health, but also seriously damage their financial position, since many workers receive no compensation if they are disabled. A survey conducted in 1970 by Michigan University showed that disability compensation laws do not apply to almost 40 per cent of the country's industrial workers.^^1^^ In cases where the worker does have the right to claim disability compensation, the payments, as a rule, amount to only one half of his wages.
Filing for disability compensation is often a complicated and drawn out affair because of the many legal restrictions. In some states, as brought out at the UAW's 19th Constitutional Convention, it frequently takes two to three years before a final decision is reached to pay a worker compensation for disability incurred on the job. In the meantime, the worker and his family remain without any means of subsistence.
Still another form of capitalist exploitation employed by the US monopolies is wide use of overtime work.
Years ago, after a long and stubborn struggle, the American working class won a substantially shorter workweek. However, this did not curb the desire of employers to lengthen the workday beyond the standards established by law. Although there are always several million fully or partially unemployed in the United States, many workers are required to work overtime. Financial insecurity and uncertainty about tomorrow always prompt them to agree to overtime work or to take side jobs in order somehow to make ends meet.
Although the 40-hour workweek is established by law, about 15.7 million workers worked 41 or more hours a week in 1965.^^2^^ In February 1966, nearly one-third of the country's wage earners worked over 41 hours a week; of these, over 20 per cent worked 48 hours a week and more. According to figures presented in Congress, 62,500,000 overtime hours were worked in just one week of March 1964.^^3^^ Hence, because of the widespread use of overtime, the workweek for many workers is actually considerably longer than 40 hours.
_-_-_~^^1^^ Time, November 9, 1970, p. 59.
~^^2^^ US News & World Report, May 24, 1965, p. 88.
~^^3^^ Ford Facts, April 5, 1965.
48The capitalists find that paying for overtime work is profitable. Secretary of Labour Willard Wirtz once noted that "employers schedule overtime. . . not for emergencies but for day-to-day operations, primarily because it is cheaper than hiring additional workers".^^1^^ In many cases, employers fail to pay their workers for overtime work at the time and a half rate provided for in the Fair Labour Standards Act, but at the normal hourly rate. The Department of Labour's initial study, conducted in 1963, showed that of the 15,200,000 Americans working over 40 hours a week, less than one-third received a higher rate of pay for overtime; this applied to about 67 per cent of the construction workers, 60 per cent of the transportation workers and 92 per cent of the employees in the service field. A similar situation existed in 1965, when of the 15,700,000 people working overtime, only one-third got overtime pay.^^2^^
Thus, this contradictory combination of ``overemployment'' (that is, overtime and supplementary work done on a mass scale) and permanent unemployment for a large part of the US working force, once again confirms Marx's statement that "the condemnation of one part of the working class to enforced idleness by the over-work of the other part, and the converse, becomes a means of enriching the individual capitalists and accelerates at the same time the production of the industrial reserve army on a scale corresponding with the advance of social accumulation.''^^3^^
One of the important factors that determine the standard of living of the working class is real wages. In recent years, workers in many industries have won increases in their nominal wage rates; this applies chiefly to the most strongly organised segments of the American working class---- steelworkers, auto workers, coal miners, construction workers, communications workers, transportation workers, etc. At the same time, however, inflation and the rising cost of living, which were aggravated by continual expansion of the Vietnam war, made real wages fall and the working man's situation deteriorate.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The Worker, May 29, I960.
~^^2^^ US News & World Report, May 24, 1965, p.
^^3^^ K. Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, p. 636.
49The cost of living has been rising steadily over recent years---by 2.8 per cent in 1967, 4.2 per cent in 1968, 5.4 per cent in 1969 and by 6 per cent in 1970.^^1^^ Prices have gone up sharply on food and other consumer goods, costs for medical services and education have increased, prices on houses bought on time have jumped, as well as the cost of other goods and services. In late 1968, 'The Wall Street Journal reported that in a matter of ten years, for example, the cost of a hospital bed went up 101 per cent, doctors' fees---38 per cent, the price of motion picture theatre tickets---50 per cent, radio and television sets---23 per cent, postal service---42 per cent.^^2^^ Between 1964 and 1970, prices of all the items that go into the cost-of-living index, including food, clothing and shelter, went up 21 per cent.^^3^^ In October 1969, even President Nixon had to admit that for many Americans inflation had reached a point where ''. . . the ever rising cost of food and clothing and rent robs them of their savings, cheats them of the vacations and those necessary extras that they thought they had been working for.''^^4^^ In his State of the Union Message of January 22, 1970, Nixon noted that in the decade between 1960 and 1970, price increases raised the cost of living for the average American family of four by $200 a month.^^5^^
In an attempt to curb inflation, the Johnson Administration succeeded in having legislation adopted by Congress in June 1968 providing for a 10 per cent increase in the federal income tax and trimming federal budget expenditures by $6,000 million. These measures struck a double blow to the vital interests of the American working people. A higher income tax rate (primarily to pay for the war in Vietnam), meant an additional withdrawal of $15,300 million from the pockets of Americans and consequently an equal reduction in the population's buying power.^^6^^ The $6,000 million _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federationist, March 1971, p. 7.
~^^2^^ The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 1968.
~^^3^^ US News & World Report, January 19, 1970, p. 30.
~^^4^^ The New York Times, October 18, 1969, p. 18.
~^^5^^ US News & World Report, February 2, 1970, p. 65.
^^6^^ While the tax burden is primarily shouldered by the working people, the bourgeois government carefully protects the interests of the monopoly elite. An analysis of the incomes of 155 taxpayers, each of whom ``earned'' over $200,000 per year, showed (as noted at a session __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 50. __PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__ 4---84 50 economy in budget expenditures, in the meantime, cut into the already meagre funds for alleviating the situation of the poor segments of the population.
In August 1968, US News & World Report lamented: "This country is undergoing a tax-increase binge the likes of which have never been seen before.''^^1^^ American economists estimated in early 1969 that taxes were eating up one-third of the working man's wages.
Tax Growth in the USA from 1939 to 1969^^2^^ 1939 1949 1959 1969 Federal taxes, thousand million dollars 6 37 87 195 As a percentage of national income . . 9 17 22 25 State-local taxes, thousand million dollars ......... 8 15 33 84 As a percentage of national income . . 10 7 8 11Discrimination in employment and wages is practised against non-whites as well as against women in the USA. Wages for these categories of working people are 35 to 50 per cent lower than the average wages of white male workers.^^3^^ A special study made in early 1967 by Professor Taylor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed that skilled black workers in Chicago received an average of $55.50 per week, while white workers doing the same kind of work got S65.20.^^4^^
Typically, black workers at many plants are kept on jobs in which they can never even come near getting the kind of wages received by white workers or the engineering and technical personnel, no matter how much experience, skill or knowledge they have or how hard they try. Some _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 49. of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress on April 17, 1969) that they paid no income tax without violating the law. Twenty-one of these men received over $1 million each per year (Political Affairs, December 1969, p. 30).
~^^1^^ US News & World Report, August 19, 1968, p. 48.
~^^2^^ Ibid., December 29, 1969, pp. 26--27.
^^3^^ Economic Report of the President, January 1965, p. 167.
~^^4^^ Steel Labor, October 1967.
51 companies keep separate job promotion lists for blacks and whites, and limits to wage increments are established (for example, at the big Monsanto Chemical plant in Arkansas), according to which the highest paid black workers receive less than the lowest paid white workers.Working women find themselves in a similar humiliatingly unequal position. As a rule, their wages are lower than men's wages. The women's labour force is concentrated essentially in industries where wages are traditionally low. For the overwhelming majority of women who do not have a sufficient education, unskilled labour is the only means by which they can earn a living. But even in cases where women do exactly the same work as men, they get less for it than the men. Assistant Secretary of Labour Esther Peterson admitted instances where women doing exactly the same work as men were paid between $8 and $20 a week difference and that even college graduates were paid less for performing the same work.^^1^^
After 18 years of procrastination, the US Congress finally, in June 1963, passed a bill on women's pay. The new law, which went into effect on June 11, 1964, provided for equal pay for equal work, but it applied to only 7.4 million of the women (out of 25 million) working in 1964 in factories, offices, stores, in domestic service and in agriculture. At the same time, it left many loopholes for employers who might want to ignore the law. Women in all sectors of the economy still get from 2/3 to 1/2 of what men get for performing the same work.
A substantial and continuous rise in the cost of living, further increases in labour productivity and intensivity, and limits put on increases in wages, all brought about a sharp increase in the degree to which labour power was exploited in the 1960s. Figures on real wages per unit of production in the manufacturing industry, compiled by progressive American economist Victor Perlo, show that the rate of labour exploitation during the period reviewed showed a marked upward tendency.^^2^^ Between 1947 and 1958, the share of __PARAGRAPH_PAUSE__ _-_-_
^^1^^ Ford Facts, October 21, 1964.
~^^2^^ Victor Perlo, "The Basic Contradiction in American Economics and the Exploitation of Workers'', Problems of Peace and Socialism, __NOTE__ Footnote cont. on page 52. __PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 52 The Pay Gap (1967)^^1^^ Men's annual pay Women's annual pay Women's pay as a percentage of men's in dollars All jobs 7,298 7,484 6,757 9,523 7,744 5,439 9,817 4,273 4,284 4,537 6,307 3,283 3,071 5,341 58 0 57.2 67.1 66.2 42.4 56.5 54.4 Craftsmen and foremen . . Clerical workers Professional and technical workers . . . Salesmen ....... Service workers (excluding houseworkers) .... Owners and managers of businesses ..... __PARAGRAPH_CONT__ labour index remained almost unchanged (not counting annual fluctuations connected primarily with cyclical development). After 1958, however, it declined steadily and rapidly, regardless of the trends in production development, dropping 11 per cent between 1959 and the end of 1964. This means a sharp rise in the rate of exploitation, or the rate of surplus value. Taking the rate of surplus value in 1958 as 100 per cent, by 1964, according to Perlo's calculations, it had reached 125 per cent.
__ALPHA_LVL2__ THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY AND THE COLLAPSEIt is becoming increasingly difficult for the apologists of capitalism to conceal behind satisfactory average figures the real situation in which the working people of the USA find themselves. Quite a number of authoritative studies have been published in recent years which have brought out the growing social differentiation, and the poverty and severe privation suffered by a rather large part of the country's _-_-_ __NOTE__ Footnote cont. from page 51. 1966, No. 3; Victor Perlo, "The USA. The Workers' Situation'', Problems of Peace and Socialism, 1968, No. 3; Victor Perlo, "Relevance of Marxist Economics to US Conditions'', Political Affairs, February 1969, pp. 42--43.
~^^1^^ US News & World Report, September 8, 1969, p. 45.
53 population. Studies by sociologists Harrington and Bagdikian; Wisconsin University Professor Lampman; former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and head of the Conference on Economic Progress Leon Keyserling; Harvard University Professor Kolko; Census Bureau economist Miller; University of Massachusetts Professor Seligman, and others, all reveal a dismal picture concealed behind the facade of the "affluent society".^^1^^The harsh facts about the real situation of US working people shatter the notorious propaganda myths about " people's capitalism'', the "democratisation of capital" and the "income revolution''. They show that the working class's share of the national income is declining and that the gap between the incomes of the small group of people standing at the top rung of the social ladder and the incomes of the great majority of the people is widening.
Figures printed by US Census Bureau economist Herman Miller in his book, Rich Man, Poor Man, published in January 1964, show that for decades 20 per cent of American families with the lowest incomes received only about 5 per cent of the total national income.^^2^^
The American system of inequality has displayed an oppressive tenacity in the last two decades, wrote Michael Harrington in 1968. And the social injustice "is not a product of the presidential psyche nor of faulty logic, but a coherent, consistent feature of our social structure''. "The nation's statesmen proclaim that they seek only to abolish war, hunger and ignorance in the world and then follow policies which _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Harrington, The Other America. Poverty in the United States, New York, 1962; M. Harrington, Toward a Democratic Left. A Radical Program for a New Majority, McMillan, New York, 1968; Ben Bagdikian, In the Midst of Plenty: The Poor in America, A Signet Book, Published by the New American Library, New York, 1963; Robert J. Lampman, The Share of Top Wealth Holders in National Wealth. 1922--1956, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1962; "Poverty and Deprivation in the USA. The Plight of Two-Fifths of a Nation''. Conference on Economic Progress, 1962; Gabriel Kolko, Wealth and Power in America; Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1962; Herman P. Miller, Rich Man, Poor Man, A Signet Book, Published by the New American Library, New York, 1965; B. Seligman, Permanent Poverty. An American Syndrome, Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1968.
~^^2^^ Herman P. Miller, Rich Man, Poor Man, p. 53.
54 make the rich richer, the poor poorer and incite the globe to violence.''^^1^^The following figures taken from official statistics point up the tremendous differentiation in personal income distribution in the USA. In 1966, while 20 per cent of the American families with the lowest incomes got only 5.4 per cent of the national income, 20 per cent of the rich families got 40.7 per cent, and 5 per cent of the richest---14.8 per cent.^^2^^
The big income gap, which shows no tendency to narrow as the years go by, increased the urgency of the problem of "the other America'', as Harrington put it---the America of the poor and unfortunate 40 to 50 million citizens who have lived, and are living today, in poverty.
In the early 1960s the poverty level---the point at which poverty begins---as determined by the President's Council of Economic Advisers, was an annual income of $3,000 for a family of four, and for single people---no less than $1,500 (before taxes and at 1962 prices). According to criteria worked out in early 1965 by the Department of Health, Education & Welfare (taking into account such factors as size of family, the age of the head of the family, living conditions in rural areas, etc.), the limits were broken down in more detail---from $1,000 for an elderly man living alone on a farm, to a little over $5,000 for a family of seven. A little arithmetic will show at what a modest figure the official subsistence minimum was set: the $3,130 a year set for a family of four would give each member only 70 cents a day for food and $1.40 for other needs, such as shelter, medical care, transportation, etc.
In his book Progress or Poverty: the USA at the Crossroads, L. Keyserling used the method for determining poverty worked out by the President's Council of Economic Advisers and came to the conclusion that in 1963 about 34.5 million Americans did not have an adequate income.^^3^^ In a study published in The Nation, Census Bureau economist Herman Miller, using the method for determining poverty given by _-_-_
~^^1^^ M. Harrington, Toward a Democratic Left, New York, 1968, p. 3.
~^^2^^ Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1968, p. 324.
~^^3^^ Ford Facts, April 5, 1965; Retail Clerks Advocate, February 1965. pp. 13--14.
55 the Department of Health, Education & Welfare, came to a similar conclusion.^^1^^ The poor, according to their definition, made up about one-fifths of the population; of these, 30 million lived in families and 5 million lived alone.Here are the basic data cited by Miller on families living in poverty:~
---The aggregate income of the 7 million families and 5 million single persons in 1963 was $12,000 million less than needed to satisfy their minimum needs. This figure, according to Census Bureau data, comprises about 3 per cent of the national money income.
---About 2 million poor families had no father, and almost half of them were not in a position to satisfy their minimum needs.
---About 2 million heads of families had full time jobs the year round.
---About 1.5 million heads of families worked full time, but not the year round. Poverty in these families stemmed from little or no income during periods of unemployment and the absence of means of subsistence in times of illness. Thus, in 50 per cent of the poor families, the head of the family worked a full day, but his annual income was too low to maintain his family.
---According to official figures, about 2 million (25 per cent) of the poor families were dark-skinned. About onethird of all the young and middle-aged poor and a large part of the chronically poor were non-whites, although nonwhites made up only 11.8 per cent of the population.
---About 20 per cent of the country's poor are senior citizens.
The situation is especially serious for the children in poor families. President Johnson admitted in a message to Congress on February 8, 1967, that 5.5 million children up to 6 years of age and 9 million up to 17 years of age live in families that are so poor that they cannot provide them with normal food and shelter.
Permanent residents of "the other America" are working blacks, who make up one of the most oppressed and neediest _-_-_
~^^1^^ Herman P. Miller, "Who Are the Poor?'', The Nation, June 7, 1965, pp. 609--10.
56 strata of the American people. The black population, numbering 25 million persons, suffers severely from discrimination and segregation in employment and wages, housing, education and civil rights; a significant proportion live under conditions of perpetual privation and degradation. On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy quite frankly painted the dismal picture of the life of American blacks. "The Negro baby born in America today,'' Kennedy said, "regardless of the section or the state in which he is born, has about onehalf as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby, born in the same place, on the same day; one-third as much chance of completing college; one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is seven years shorter and the prospects of earning only half as much.''^^1^^The report of a government commission appointed by President Johnson in the summer of 1967 to investigate the causes for black unrest cited convincing evidence that the United States is a racist society in which millions of blacks live at the very bottom of society without any hope for the future. The report pointed out that in 1966, 32 per cent of all the black families in the country were poor according to the official classification, compared with white families, among which only 13 per cent were so classified.^^2^^
The income gap between the black and white population has not diminished since then; in fact, it has shown a tendency to increase. According to data cited by Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, "the gap [between the median family income for Negro families] and the median income of white families grew by $800 a year from 1947--1966. In 1947, the gap between whites and blacks was only $2,174 a year. This is bad enough, but in 1966 the gap had grown to $3,036 a year.''^^3^^
_-_-_^^1^^ The Worker, June 23, 1963.
~^^2^^ "Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. Summary of Report'', Washington, 1968, p. 252.
~^^3^^ Proceedings of the Twenty-Second General Convention of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, AFL-CIO, San Diego, California, July 8-12, 1968, p. 74.
57The special study conducted by the above-mentioned President's commission showed that in many cities the situation for blacks is worsening. In the Hough section of Cleveland, for example, the average income for black families fell by about $700 between 1960 and 1965. During the same period, the percentage of poor families in the Bedford, Stuyvesant and Harlem sections of New York rose from 28 to 35 per cent. The percentage of poor families in the black districts of Chicago grew from 33 to 37 per cent during the same period.^^1^^
Members of other non-white national minorities in the United States---the Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and others---live in no better, in many cases even worse, circumstances. Of the 550,000 Indians in the country, 380,000 live on reservations with an average annual income of $1,800 per family---less than the average income in black families and about a quarter of the average figure for the United States as a whole.^^2^^ Also living in a state of constant need, poverty and privation are the Puerto Ricans, concentrated in large cities, and the Mexicans, who are basically low-paid agricultural workers in the southern regions of the country. But even poorer are the unfortunate and persecuted aborigines of Alaska. The annual income for many of them never goes above $500.
Agricultural workers and workers on small farms stand on one of the lowest rungs of the social ladder in the United States. As pointed out in a special AFL-CIO statement, they are the poorest and most oppressed people in America. Their average income is less than $1,000 a year, and they find employment for an average of 140 days per year.^^3^^
The average wage for agricultural workers in 1963 was less than 90 cents an hour. It was 68 cents an hour in the southern states, which accounted for over half of all those employed in agriculture. The highest average hourly wage was in California---$1.30. If an agricultural worker was lucky enough to get the high wage and if he was again lucky _-_-_
~^^1^^ US News & World Report, February 19, 1968, p. 61.
~^^2^^ Monthly Labor Review, March 1969, p. 19; Spectator, Tuly 10, 1971, p. 52.
~^^3^^ Farm Workers, AFL-CIO. Legislative Department, Fact Sheet, 1965, No. 11.
58 enough to find work the year round, even then his average annual income would be less than $3,000,^^1^^ that is, lower than the officially recognised poverty line. Agricultural workers receive considerably lower wages than industrial workers, and the gap between the two has a tendency to grow even further. In 1910--1914, the average hourly wage of agricultural workers amounted to 67 per cent of the average wage of factory workers. By 1945, it had shrunk to 47 per cent and by 1963 to 36 per cent.^^2^^Because of extremely low wages and chronic unemployment, the standard of living among agricultural workers is significantly lower than the average for the country. Almost half of the poorest segment of the US population are in agricultural regions. According to data cited by the Democratic Administration's Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, over 5,100,000 families of agricultural workers and farmers live in poverty---a total of about 15,000,000 people.^^3^^ Migrant workers, who make up one-fourth of the country's seasonal agricultural workers, live in extremely difficult circumstances, with average annual incomes considerably lower than those of other agricultural workers. Many migrant workers move to industrial centres after losing hope of finding work in the agricultural regions, only to swell the already overpopulated big city slums.
The recognised centres of poverty in the United States are areas of so-called chronic depression, or areas with a high and steady rate of unemployment, and also with generally low family incomes. Such areas are divided into two groups. In Group A are areas where the general unemployment rate is 6 per cent or more, or with an average annual rate of unemployment exceeding the national rate by 50 per cent during three out of the four preceding years, by 75 per cent for two out of three years and by 100 per cent for a period of one year out of two. In Group B are areas with low general and farmer incomes, and also microregions with a high, stable rate of unemployment.
The number of depressed areas increased sharply in the _-_-_
~^^1^^ The American Federationist, June 1964, p. 8.
~^^2^^ Ibid., p. 9.
~^^3^^ The International Teamster, February 1964, p. 23.
59 early 1960s, embracing hundreds of large and small cities and workers' settlements with a total population running into tens of millions. In March 1963, there were 18 ``large'', 103 ``smaller'' and 54 "very small" areas of chronic depression. In May 1971 (when the unemployment rate for the country went up to 6 per cent), the number of areas classified by the Department of Labour as "areas of substantial and persistent unemployment" reached 687, the highest level since May 1962.^^1^^ There are millions of people suffering unemployment and material privation in the chronically depressed areas---"they are the forgotten Americans; the invisible poor whose lives are barren and without purpose. They are victims of social neglect and callous indifference, left to shift for themselves by the more affluent part of America.''^^2^^Most of the depressed areas are in the Appalachians, a mountainous region that includes all or part of the territory of the states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. What were formerly industrial boom areas, especially with respect to the coal mining industry, have now, as a result of automation, labour intensification and cutbacks in commodity markets, become areas of unemployment and poverty. Every third family living in the Appalachians has an income of less than $3,000 a year. In the early 1960s, about 400,000 people were officially registered as unemployed, while another 700,000 jobless persons were not even registered because they had lost all hope of finding work.^^3^^
The jobless inhabitants of the Appalachians and of many other of the country's depressed areas drag out a miserable existence. Here is how American sociologist B. Bagdikian described their life in an article appearing in the Saturday Evening Post. "There is a world inside the United States where the American Dream is dying. It is a world where, _-_-_
~^^1^^ AFL-CIO News, May 8, 1971.
~^^2^^ "The Values We Cherish. Keynote Address to the Fifth Constitutional Convention of November 7, 1963''. By Walter P. Reuther. Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO, p. 10.
~^^3^^ Appalachia, Proceedings. Appalachian Trade Union Conference, Charleston, West Virginia, October 12--14, 1964, p. 9.
60 when it rains at night, everyone gets up to move beds away from the leaks. Where there is no electricity---but refrigerators are valued to keep food safe from rats. Where regularly at the end of the month whole families live on things like berries and bread. Where children in winter sleep on floors in burlap bags and their lung X-rays at the age of 12 look like old men's. Where students drift hungry and apathetic through school and their parents die 10 or 20 or 30 years earlier than their countrymen! These invisible Americans are the poor and they are located everywhere in the country. In a few places, there's scarcely anyone else.''^^1^^ For millions of such Americans, the only thing left is to go on welfare, for they have lost all hope of finding work, are no longer eligible for unemployment benefits and have exhausted whatever savings they may have had.Data published by The Wall Street Journal show that the number of Americans who have to rely on this kind of degrading assistance increases year by year at a much faster rate than the rate of population increase for the USA as a whole. Between 1954 and 1964, the population increased from 162,000,000 to 192,000,000, i.e., it showed an 18 per cent increase. In the same period, the number of welfare recipients increased from 5,500,000 to 7,800,000---an increase of 42 per cent. More than half of these were mothers with children.^^2^^ Between 1961 and 1971, however, the number of welfare recipients in the USA had doubled from 7,200,000 to about 14,400,000.^^3^^
The situation in certain cities or areas is much worse than in the country as a whole. In San Francisco, for example, the number of welfare recipients had almost doubled between 1954 and 1964, although the city's population had actually decreased during that period. Figures for New York show that between 1967 and 1971, the number of people on welfare had also doubled, totalling about 1,200,000 at the end of that period, 45 per cent of whom were blacks and 40 per cent Puerto Ricans.^^4^^ In 1971, from 10 to 15 per cent of the population of many big cities were welfare recipients.
_-_-_~^^1^^ The International Teamster, February 1964, p. 17.
~^^2^^ The Wall Street Journal, January 8, 1965.
~^^3^^ US News & World Report, August 9, 1971, p. 13.
~^^4^^ New York Post, March 29, 1971.
61 People on Relief^^1^^ Number of people collecting relief Per cent of area's population Baltimore .............. 137,793 15 2 Denver ............... 51,825 10 1 New Orleans ............. 88,018 14.8 New York 1 181 310 15 0 Philadelphia ............. 288,297 14.8 St. Louis ............... 91,605 14.7 San Francisco 101 710 14 2 Washington ............. 79,412 10.5Although 14,000,000 Americans were receiving welfare in 1971, the actual number of people needing it was considerably larger.^^2^^ However, various rules and restrictions and the humiliating procedure involved in proving need prevent many needy people from receiving assistance.^^3^^ " Paradoxically,'' a Time editorial noted, "it is the neediest who are helped least by the welfare state.'' The majority of the poor reap no benefits from social security, adds the magazine.^^4^^
The assistance that poor people do receive is very small and falls far short of freeing them from poverty. "Few people realise,'' wrote The Nation, "how shockingly low are the payments received by the 7.5 million to 8 million people who at any given time are supported by public assistance. . . .These crucial standards are in most cases below, often far _-_-_
~^^1^^ US News & World Report, August 9, 1971, p. 14.
~^^2^^ In 1967, for example, over 29,000,000 poor Americans (over 9,000,000 of whom were non-whites) received no help whatever from federal, state or city agencies. (Monthly Labor Review, February 1969, p. 34.)
~^^3^^ In 1970--1971, bills were introduced in the legislative assemblies of several states providing for compulsory sterilisation of welfare recipients. A bill was introduced in the Illinois state legislature, for example, which would require either the husband or wife receiving welfare and having three or more children to undergo obligatory sterilisation if they wanted to continue receiving welfare payments. Similar bills were introduced in Tennessee and South Carolina. (The Nation, lune 28, 1971, p. 809.)
~^^4^^ Time, May 13, 1966, p. 14.
62 below, the poverty level.''^^1^^ Figures compiled by Leon Keyserling showed that in June 1964, for example, public assistance to the poor in the country as a whole amounted to $32.51 per month per person, which for a family of three came to less than $1,200 a year. Moreover, 86 per cent of such families received no other assistance besides that miserly sum, and were thus doomed to a life of hunger.In April 1968, a 25-member Citizens Board of Inquiry into Hunger and Malnutrition established by an organisation called the Citizens Crusade Against Poverty reported that at least 10 million Americans may be hunger victims, and that the situation among poor people was worsening. The study group found evidence of chronic hunger and malnutrition in such diverse areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Des Moines and New Orleans.^^2^^ The report noted that in the 265 counties of 20 states where the study was conducted (primarily in areas of chronic depression), half of the population had to be classified as poor, and that the death rate in those areas, especially among children, was twice the national average. A special Senate committee on problems of hunger reviewed the report and concluded that the problem was extremely serious. "Hunger in the US,'' wrote US News & World Report in April 1969, "is being built up as a prime issue in national politics.''^^3^^
In 1964, the US Government was forced by the pressure of circumstances to carry out a number of social measures "from above" in order to smooth down the sharpening class antagonisms and stem the upsurge in the working class's economic and political struggle. Feelings of anxiety and alarm were already beginning to grip the country because of the unveiled poverty existing behind the facade of the "affluent society" and the deprivation suffered by millions of working people who had not the wherewithal to satisfy even their basic needs.
On January 8, 1964, President Johnson, in his State of the Union Message, called poverty "a national problem'', and declared that his administration "here and now declares _-_-_
~^^1^^ The Nation, June 7, 1965, p. 613.
~^^2^^ US News & World Report, May 13, 1968, p. 48.
~^^3^^ Ibid., April 2<S, 1969, p. 32.
63 unconditional war on poverty in America".^^1^^ About two months later, on March 16, he presented his programme to Congress. On July 29, the Senate, and on August 8, the House of Representatives, passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which came to be known as the "anti-poverty bill''.Johnson's promise to put an end to poverty and "to help each and every American citizen fulfil his basic hopes" was not something new in America. As far back as 1928, on the eve of the Great Depression, President Hoover had boasted that "we in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.''^^2^^ With a reminder that the presidential election of November 1964 was drawing near, the US News & World Report wrote: "A reading of history shows that `poverty' and its elimination for generations have been the rallying cry of politicians in both parties when seeking office.... At the same time, opposition candidates find it difficult to attack the idea of helping the poor.''^^3^^
The very fact that the US Cong