As you alluded, race plays a big factor in the resentment against social welfare programs. In a book called Why Americans Hate Welfare(may not be the exact title, it's been a long time since I've seen it last), the author found that most Americans support all kinds of welfare programs. However, they often turned vehemently against such programs when there was a hint that these programs might significantly benefit minorities, especially black Americans. In fact, the common association with welfare is black people, despite the fact that far more whites receive such assistance than black Americans. In fact some still believe that only minorities are allowed to collect benefits. A great deal of people believe that illegal immigrants are eligible for state benefits, when in fact they are not.
JS “The entire party and country should hurl into the fire and break the neck of anyone who dared trample underfoot the sacred edict of the party on the defense of women's rights.” - Enver Hoxha, 1967 --- On Mon, 1/17/11, waistli...@aol.com <waistli...@aol.com> wrote: From: waistli...@aol.com <waistli...@aol.com> Subject: Re: [MLL] Poor Reason Culture still doesn't explain poverty To: marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Monday, January 17, 2011, 10:48 AM Blaming poverty on those in poverty rather than the logic of the economic system is capitalist ideology. Winning a layer of society to this ideology requires unrelenting propaganda by the bourgeoisie. It also requires an expanding economy and economic stability to sustain the lie. As the crisis deepens and the survival fight of the proletariat increases layers of society discard chunks of bourgeois ideology. The purpose of the article on the "poor" was to illustrate changing conditions making it possible to bring to the forefront the issue of class, wealth, power and distribution of the social products. It is going to be difficult if not impossible for the bourgeoisie to sustain an ideology built up based on an expanding economy. The old axiom "in the battle between the stomach and the mind, the stomach wins out," is coming into play. A class of slaves can only remain loyal to its masters if it is fed and housed. Interestingly, an ideological shift is taking place delivering a blow to the ideology of the "Welfare Queen." "Welfare Queen" is a derogatory term meaning black women in its ideological imagery. The ideological conception was of sexually active black women, with children, "no man" and a willingness to lie and cheat so that "others" would have to take care of her and her family. The imagery is of a black women in a mink coat with three baskets of food being paid for with food stamps white hard working white males are forced to pay for her life style with their taxed wages. Although children rather than women make up the bulk of the welfare roll and most of these children have always been white, the bourgeoisie is compelled to rely upon the historic white chauvinism to win a section of society to its class position. Hence, the Welfare Queen was imagery of the black women as lazy shiftless "mink wearing" whore, seeking no more than to live off of "decent working Americans." Reagan popularized this term/concept as the centerpiece of his administrations assault on the entire working class. An internet of this term reveals its ugly history. As our society is ruptured new forms of the old ideology that poor people are poor "because they are poor in work ethics" is needed. Actually, the ideology of the work ethic and "a job as the solution to poverty" is so much bourgeois imperialist ideology born of the capitalist epoch. As unemployment increases and wages decrease the ideology of "marriage as solution to poverty" also begins to crumble. Married families with both working are being pushed into poverty and homelessness. II. We are entering a new epoch of world history. The historic "bribery" of our proletariat is being shattered forever. For the first time a survival fight is evolving under conditions where expanding productive capacity cannot expand the mode of distribution and the hiring of labor. New means of production expand production dramatically by permanently outing labor from the production process and as consumers. On this basis a practical movement for communism - distribution of socially necessary products without the demand for money, is coming into existence. This practical movement is composed of a growing section of humanity that doesn't have the money to pay for the necessities of life. In real time the budding survival fight is compelled to fight for means of life alongside the contradictory currents fighting for jobs. Unemployment is still increasing; government and private pension funds are in collapse, defaults on mortgages continue, school systems and public transportation is in collapse, public and private sector unions are under enormous pressure by capital to reduce labor costs, etc. While the union movement has reached a cross road demanding the destruction of "business unionism" and extending the scope of union activity into the new proletariat, the people - proletariat, must eat and be housed right now. At any rate, the practical movement for communism in the here and now occurs in a new context: new means of production - the computers and robots -- eliminating human labor permanently; a huge accumulation of built up productive forces being built up based on this new technology that renders superfluous the need for a prior demand of labor as the basis for distribution of socially necessary means of production. Of necessity, the goal of this practical movement is a new society organized around distribution by socially necessary needs. This goal cannot be achieved under a social system based on private property. III. Revolution occurs when antagonism between production and distribution (social relations defining the basis on which distribution takes place or in our context wage labor) develops. Antagonism develops in the economy as economic revolution disrupts the unity between the mode of producing (wage labor) and the mode of distribution. As the economic revolution destroys the existing society, a spontaneous movement for reform begins. With the help of conscious revolutionaries working within it with a vision of what is possible, the spontaneous movement can become a conscious struggle for the political power necessary to construct a new society. The practical movement for communism is in antagonism to a capitalist system based on the buying and selling of labor power. This antagonism is expressed in the inability of the workers to sell their labor power while at the same time they are unable to live without selling their labor power. This movement's demand is for a change in the mode of distribution - a change in the way society distributes its food, clothing, shelter, education, healthcare, utilities and a cultured life. Its demands strike at the political heart of the capitalist system. No one started this objective process and no one can stop it. It is communist because it has no way to achieve its goal for a decent life outside of the reorganization of society cooperatively, based on post industrial means of production. Waistline _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list _______________________________________________ Marxist-Leninist-List mailing list Marxist-Leninist-List@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxist-leninist-list
