The question of "making a living" is a most important one for
human beings. "Livings" have been made in various ways at different
times and stages of the development of human society. The main form
of making a living in a society is determined by the manner in
which the ruling class or classes make their living. In classical
Greek society, the ruling class made their living from the use of
slave labor. The main form of making a living in Greece at that
time was as a slave. The contemporary ruling classes make their
living through the seizure of maximum capitalist profit. The main
form of making a living today is as worker for a monopoly
capitalist company or the state.
Profit is *unpaid* labor. It is more precisely defined as
*unpaid* labor resulting from commodity production. Capitalist
profit occurs when money is used to purchase labor power and means
of production in order to produce something. During the process of
production the labor power is consumed as well as a portion of the
means of production. This process gives rise to material value that
is destined for the market to be exchanged for money or, less
likely, for other commodities. The amount of money received upon
the sale of the produced material value is greater than the amount
of money expended during its production. The increase is called
profit. This profit is then divided up amongst a large variety of
people who are not directly connected with the production process.
They are the creditors who receive a share of the profit in the
form of interest. They are the landlords who receive a portion in
the form of rent. They are the merchants who receive their portion
upon the sale of the commodity to the customer. They are the
speculators who play the stock market or the commodity exchange.
All these varied forms of profit have only one source: the *unpaid*
labor of the worker in the process of production of material
value. There is no other source of profit. The mass media often
speaks of the banks making profit, or speculators making a killing
in the stock market or through a land deal, or by buying and
selling commodities. The wealth that is appropriated does not
originate with these deals. There is no mystical well that springs
forth profit into the pockets of the rich. It all originates in the
*unpaid* labor of those workers engaged in the process of production
of the actual material blessings that this earth can provide when
labor is applied to it.
When thinking about profit in a country, it is useful to abstract
the country as a whole. There is an aggregate amount of profit. A
portion of this *unpaid* labor, this profit, is obtained firstly at
the point of production by the capitalists who directly own the
means of production. Additional amounts of *unpaid* labor are seized by the
state through taxes and other deductions from the wages of the
working class either directly from pay checks or later through
such devices as property taxes and sales taxes and
such things as lotteries and casinos, etc. This *unpaid*
labor (profit) is divided up amongst the capitalists according to
the relative strength of the particular capitalist. The most
popular form of seizing *unpaid* labor via the state is through the
method of the national, state and municipal debts. More
traditional methods of seizing *unpaid* labor are through using
state services at cost.
Another traditional source is through the control of the
prices of commodities by the monopolies who by virtue of the fact
they dominate a section of the economy or through collusion with
other monopolies can demand whatever price they desire or reduce
the price for raw materials from oppressed countries.
The contemporary world is characterized by the existence of
*gigantic* monopolies that own companies and other interests all
around the world. A recent bank was inaugurated in Japan that has
assets of $550 billion. These monopolies may have a home base in
one particular country like the United States but their allegiance
is to making maximum capitalist profit all over the world. The
profit that they desire is not fixed in any degree but is the
maximum possible given the conditions. They combine their enormous
economic power with the political and military power of the state
machines wherever they operate. The most powerful of them utilize
the additional strength of the international organizations that
they manipulate to promote their interests, such as the United
Nations, European Union, NATO, the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund. The enormous power that emanates from their economic
strength combined with political power allows them to organize
their quest for maximum profit in a manner that allows for very
little risk to their fortunes.
The overwhelming military strength of the largest imperialist
powers both individually and in blocs allows them to capture whole
areas of the world's natural resources and exploit the abundant
cheap labor of the oppressed countries. This is a source of
super-profits, an abundance of wealth that permits them to bribe
sections of the working class in their home base as well as
sold-out sections of the ruling circles within the oppressed
countries. The origin of this super-profit is the *unpaid* labor of
the working class and other working people of the oppressed
countries.
The U.S. imperialists are now embarked on an ambitious drive
to create a unipolar world under their dictate where they will be
able to seize the vast majority of the *unpaid* labor of the world's
people for their own use. The imperialist peace that has been
imposed on Bosnia with its occupation by thousands of foreign
troops is for the aims and interests of the occupying powers,
chiefly U.S. imperialism. The fiery crash near Dubrovnik
of the U.S. military plane carrying U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron
Brown and thirty executives of the largest U.S. monopolies
including the past-president of one of the biggest Canadian
engineering firms was a rather vivid reminder of the very real
economic opportunities this imperialist peace generates for the
occupiers. These executives were scouring the ruins of Yugoslavia
in search of investment opportunities amidst the devastation.
Protected by U.S. and NATO troops these imperialists were poised to
make a killing from the desperation of the working masses of the
beleaguered Balkans. The only stumbling block at this point to
their ambitious claims on the *unpaid* labor and resources of the
people of the Balkans is the equally ravenous appetite for profit
of the other imperialist countries.
Shawgi Tell
University at Buffalo
Graduate School of Education
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
