Low-Wage Capitalism
Gregory Elich
Low-Wage Capitalism: Colossus with Feet of Clay
By Fred Goldstein
Low-Wage Capitalism describes in sweeping detail the drastic effect on the
working class in the United States of new technology and the restructuring
of global capitalism in the post-Soviet era. It uses Karl Marx's law of
wages and other findings to show that these developments are not only
continuing to drive down wages but are creating the material basis for
future social upheaval.
The analysis rests on three basic developments in the last three decades:
* The world's workforce available to exploitation by transnational
capitalist corporations doubled in the wake of the collapse of the USSR and
Eastern Europe.
* The technological revolutions of the digital age, in both production and
communications, have allowed transnational corporations to destroy high-wage
jobs and simultaneously expand the global workforce to generate a worldwide
wage competition.
* The decline in the economic condition of the workers, driven by the laws
of capitalism and the capitalist class, is leading to the end of
working-class compromise and retreat and must end up in a profound revival
of the struggle against capitalism.
While the book concentrates on changes in the U.S., restructuring is a world
phenomenon. Goldstein's general analysis also applies to the imperialist
countries of Western Europe and Japan. The book discusses how:
* Advanced processes of production promoted by the corporate giants in
low-wage countries have changed the international division of labor within
world capitalism.
* The "national wage" is being supplanted by an international determination
of wages as worldwide wage competition lowers the floor.
* Since the late 1970s, the vast majority of U.S. workers have seen a
decline in wages and living conditions as permanent, high-paying jobs with
benefits disappear.
* The rise of the multi-earner family represents a hidden, class-wide wage
cut for U.S. workers.
* Restructuring and technology have especially impacted on African-American
workers.
* Women have flooded into the workforce, most at low-wage jobs, in order to
survive.
* Increased exploitation of Latinos and other immigrants is an integral part
of globalization.
* Highlights from past struggles provide a guide to future action and
organization.
* It takes a broad workers' movement to fight for the economic and social
needs of all.
* Breaking out of the traditional capital-labor relationship is essential to
the defense of the multinational working class in the era of low-wage
capitalism.
"With the capitalist system demonstrably unfair, irrational, and prone to
intermittent crises, it is useful, indeed refreshing, to see a Marxist
analysis of globalization and its effects on working people. Fred
Goldstein's LOW-WAGE CAPITALISM does exactly that ."
- Howard Zinn
"Lucid, deeply accurate and informative, as relevant and useful as a book
can be, Goldstein offers a compelling analysis of the exploitative world of
global corporate capitalism."
- Michael Parenti, author of Contrary Notions
"160 years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto, Fred Goldstein
takes on the challenge of applying Marxist political economy to the
burgeoning crisis of capitalist globalization in the 21st century."
- Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor Pan-African News Wire
"Only by understanding capitalism and monopoly capitalism can we understand
the root causes of global poverty and migration."
- Berna Ellorin, Secretary-General, BAYAN USA
"In this period of economic uncertainty, Fred Goldstein's 'Low-Wage
Capitalism' could not be better timed.
Beautifully written, deeply considered and backed by impressive research,
this is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the true nature
of the world we live in and the factors that have led to so much turmoil.
Even the most knowledgeable will find much to learn from in this compelling
and revelatory analysis of predatory corporate capitalism, and find it a
source to return to again and again. Employing Marxism as an analytical
method, Goldstein has succeeded in creating a bracing corrective to the
pabulum served by the corporate media, and a salutary review of the labor
movement. Urgently recommended."
- Gregory Elich, Author, "Strange Liberators"
"We need to get this book into the hands of every worker. It clearly
explains the capitalist economic threat to our jobs, our pensions and our
homes. But, even more importantly, it shows us how we can fight back and
win!"
- David Sole, President UAW Local 2334, Detroit, Michigan
"Low wage capitalism by Fred Goldstein is a most timely and important work,
as the working class prepares for a 狄ightback during the greatest crisis of
capitalism since the great depression."
- Clarence Thomas, Executive Board ILWU Local 10 and co-chair of the Million
Worker March Movement
"This book helps us to understand the root of the present neoliberal
globalization - a new stage of the international capitalist crisis -
especially right after two very important events in the late twentieth
century: the scientific-technological revolution in production,
communications, and transportation, and the demise of the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe..."
- Ignacio Meneses, Co-Chair, US-Cuba Labor Exchange
Low-Wage Capitalism: Colossus with Feet of Clay
by Fred Goldstein
Softcover: 338 pages
index, bibliography, end notes
Publisher: World View Forum
Language: English
ISBN: 0-89567-151-4
$19.95
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