Translated "Avante!" article by Jorge Cadima, Member of the International Department
Detroit’s declaration of bankruptcy is the decadent capitalism picture of our days. The town and its car industry were a symbol of the “ American century”. Up to now, Detroit is General Motors seat, the greatest world company, for decades. At its time , it was the USA’s fourth greatest town, with 2 million inhabitants. In 1960, it held the highest income per capita in the country. In 1950, it held 300 thousand working posts in industry. Currently, there are less than 27 thousand. The economy financing, autoimmunization, working posts displacement, decimated the town. With the loss of employments, a great part of the population left town, and currently there are but round 700 thousand. About a third of its surface, are empty buildings and in ruin. More than half of the left population is unemployed. Sixty per cent of the children live in poverty. Budget cuts turned off 40% of the public illumination and the majority of the police stations close during 16 hours a day ( in theeconomiccollapseblog.com, 2013.07.20). The town’s degradation accelerated the run off of its inhabitants ( 25% since 2000 - Financial Times, 2013.07.26), reducing the fiscal basis and diving Detroit in a lethal spiral.
The media has references of all this situation. But does not mention all. Since the capitalist system dived into its greatest economic crisis in 2008, the great financial capital has been awarded with many thousand of millions of state aid and subsidies, paid by the taxpayers. And what about when the “taxpayer” is in trouble? The great banks fell upon the victim’s carcass, as vultures. Detroit, suffocated by the loss of taxes and deprived from the central state support, strangled by debts and - as in Portugal- by swap contracts in liaison with interest rates (in Bloomberg, 2013.06.20). Interest rates which, as highlighted during the Libor scandal, manipulated by the very same banks which benefit from those obscure contracts. Detroit’s creditor banks (UBS, Bank of America, Merill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase) are a suit and tied gang. As Bloomberg published four months ago ( 2013.03.13): “ Only but Wall Street profits with the Detroit’s crisis[…], the Wall Street bankers received over 474 million dollars coming from such a poor town, that wasn’t even capable of keeping public illumination working”.
As over here, “bankruptcies” are a pretext for an outrageous attack against rights, employment and the workers and pensioners incomes. A good part of the regime’s media - as here- blames the victims for their problems ( an example, in the Economist, 2013.07.27). The class offensive against the USA workers - which, have suffered life levels’ fall, for more than four decades - is currently harder. And this is not just about a social attack. Many are the “ emergency managers” which overlap the elected local authorities. The special and exceptional legislations introduced under the pretext of terrorism, Omni-present vigilance, growing police brutality, are the precursor of the outrageous attack of a dominant class, in a decline stage, prepared against its people.
The USA long ago powerful capitalism, is currently a condemned system, which survives owing to a galloping and unsustainable debt, systemic falsification and corruption, artificial and fictitious bubbles, unrestrained plunder and planetarium war. It will only stay afloat by exacerbating more and more irrational violence, which was always its feature. The North-American imperialism ferocity - which has made so many peoples throughout the world suffer - turns against the USA’s own people. Never, as currently, the class struggle has been so evident and the need for solidarity and internationalism concerning the struggle of labour against the capital.