This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools. Send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for more info. --------------10487C63789C Stop Paying the Rich Increase Funding for Social Programs The more the crisis of the capitalist system deepens, the more statistics corroborate all the symptoms of a system that cannot provide for the people. Recently released figures from Statistics Canada profiling the country s labour force once again testify to this The crisis of unemployment, now taking the form of the jobless recovery since the last recession, is evidence of one of the most profound failings of the system, which denies the people the right to a livelihood. The response of the governments across the country is to aggravate the situation by abdicating their responsibility to provide for the victims of the system. The 1995 "labour income profile" shows that as unemployment has taken its toll, increasing numbers of workers have been forced into the category of "self-employed contractors." Between 1990 and 1995 both the number of people earning their income from self-employment alone, and the number relying on both self-employment and regular jobs increased. The number of people relying only on "wages and salary" actually decreased. The Statistics Canada reports, while revealing these facts, mystifies the reality by describing those peple who have come to rely on "self-employment" as part of the "employed labour force". This suggests that the economy is actually providing jobs for the people. The reality is that the workers are thrown out of work, cut off unemployment insurance benefits, and then forced to scrounge for a living, taking short-term contractual work without benefits, with very little "income". The presentation of the earnings of the "self-employed" as "employment income" is a deception. It does not reflect the many expenses which are incurred and quite frequently result in virtually no income. The same is the case with the distorted picture that is given of a "median" income of $20,600 per year. This covers up the increasing disparity in the society between the rich and poor by lumping together those who earn millions in "salary" and those who barely earn a few thousand. Statistics on poverty and those on "employment income" are reported separately, which means that poverty is not connected with the very failing of the economic system and its incapacity to provide the people with a livelihood. The increasingly insecure economic situation of the people is an indictment of the capitalist system. Nonetheless, the ruling circles of Canada have washed their hands of the problem, simply declaring that the "hidden hand" of the economy will generate jobs, so long as the state treasury and the legislature are used to create a "competitive environment" for the capitalists. At the same time, governments hand over billions to the financial oligarchy in the form of interest payments, cutting funds from social spending and facilitating, in many other ways as well, the withdrawal of more and more out of the economy than what is put back into it. Furthermore, the refrain of the bourgeoisie that there is no other way is a course for disaster. Just as the facts reveal that the capitalist system cannot provide for the people, the facts also show that there is an alternative. It lies in the program to Stop Paying the Rich Increase Funding for Social Programs! The decisive factor in changing the situation is for the working class to take up this program for implementation instead of waiting for the bourgeoisie to solve the problems of the economy. CPC(M-L) Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------10487C63789C--