economy – Page 2 – Ecological Era

Technological Advancement and Material Conditions

So what we seem to be seeing is what the new government is going to be doing is to keep the old decaying industry functioning, regardless of its ecological impact. The appointments Donald Trump has made are all involved with petroleum and fossil fuel production. Either that or they are inexperienced, and will take orders well.

What we can expect is, for instance, Milwaukee’s electrical generation will be remaining coal fired turbines, until Trump leaves office. For a number of years Wisconsin Electric, the monopoly that sells natural gas and electricity to Southeastern WIsconsin, has talked about switching the Oak Creek power plant to gas.

This now looks unlikely, regardless of the ecological effects of massive coal storage and burning. Simply put, the Republican bourgeoisie will not have deep enough pockets to change the turbines to gas.

It also looks like gasoline powered large engines for autos, boats, etc. will be here to stay. Trump has said he will tariff, or tax, Chinese electric vehicles (EV”S). The current government has already increased for this year 100% tariffs on electric vehicles, a 25% tariff on lithium-ion EV batteries and a 50% tariff on photovoltaic solar cells produced in China.

And this is not enough for Trump, he wants to increase taxes on imports, tariffs, even higher.

China has shown it can produce cheap quality EV’s that are competitive in the world market. They pollute the ecology far less than Detroit’s SUV and pickup trucks that use large gasoline powered engines. The tax on imports of Chinese EV’s are designed to make Detroit’s products more competitive in the domestic market.

Who wouldn’t want a cheap quality EV? Why would a machine that can reduce the ecological impact of climate change not be welcomed?

China now produces 80% of the photovoltaic cells for solar energy. At some point China decided to move forward industrially, went metric, and shifted to developing the latest technology. All our bourgeoisie can do is tax imports from China to keep Americans buying Detroit’s gasoline powered large engine vehicles, and consuming fossil fuels for power generation.

We expect it from Trump, but here is Biden doing it too. These forms of protectionism are only going to get worse, and you can really see how non metric industry is simply not competitive. China is still considered a third world country by the United Nations, and American can’t compete. The statements to expect are something to the effect of “China, India and Russia are polluting the ecology, why should we be held to a different standard?”

Which reduces us to the standards of a declining capitalist model, like Russia, without recycling; or India and China, that are in the developing world.

How far we have come. The days of glory are coming to an end; technological progress is changing society, and Detroit is still not metric. The speed limit signs, the gas pumps, the size of containers at the store, are all not yet metric.

And do you really expect Trump to do a metric conversion? He doesn’t even believe climate change is real. “Make America Great Again” includes inches, gallons, and feet.

Another 4 years without a metric conversion. And this is supposed to be someone who understands basic economics.

What this is going to do is fetter the productive forces even worse than they are currently. It will further isolate the workers and industry from the rest of the world. Who is going to buy a large non metric gasoline powered motor pickup truck outside the domestic market?

Then there is the social conditions; Elon Musk, who invested more than 250 million dollars into getting Trump elected, is now coming to power. His industry he owns is called Tesla, and produces luxury automobiles. It is not part of regular commodity production, it is what the surplus value is spent on. It does not produce a profit, rather it consumes profit. A worker cannot afford Musk’s cars, they are for the bourgeoisie. It is what the bourgeois spend their profits on, rather than an affordable car a worker would consume.

This and government contracts are how Musk has gained his wealth. Trump will steer more government contracts for space,. to Musk’s monopoly, complete with the knowledge of engineers who created the industry for NASA previously..

These are all part of what to expect around here for the next 4 years. Buying a Detroit gasoline powered truck, not being able to afford a solar panel for the house, using gas and electricity instead of renewable energy…. The speed limit staying 70 miles per hour on the highway; purchasing gallons of gasoline for the car, etc. Prepare yourself for it, it is coming.

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic

Profit and Taxes. Wages and Profit.

Wages are the lowest that can be paid, remaining socially acceptable. The unpaid section of the workday, the surplus value, essentially what profit, is where taxes are divided off from. Escaping from this reality seems to be what is desired now, by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

If you cut taxes from profit and shift it directly on the workers back,. the taxes still have to be paid for. Workers work longer hours, what Marx referred to as increasing the absolute surplus value. But this too runs into resistance, as there are laws about how many hours workers are supposed to be able to work, 8 hours is the current one.

You have to work them overtime to make up for the loss of wages due to the tax

Longer hours, a wage cut… It makes one wonder where the support for this is coming from.

Privations by the proletariat would seem to be coming. You cannot simply raise the amount of profit. If you lower the amount of the taxes from profit the taxes have to come from somewhere.

And as the only thing that creates profit is labour,: lowering taxes on the wealthy is the same thing as increasing the profit kept by the capitalist at the workers expense.

Either the taxes are coming from the form of profit, or from making the worker privy to part of what was taken as surplus value directly by his employer by charging him yearly, like property taxes, or printing it on the paycheck as a deduction, it still comes from the worker. In either case, divided off of profit, or shifted on to the worker, the surplus value flows into the state.

The bourgeoisie claims the tax money as their own. Obviously for them it is part of their profit. State industry does not make a profit. It is privatized when it can make a profit, we saw this with recycling. Waste Management now runs the sorter. Money for the state can only come from taxes.

The wealthy can only cut taxes by increasing privations from its workers. Surplus value from the worker is needed to maintain the capitalist state. It is a bourgeois fantasy to massively defund the state. Perhaps some of the savings will come from the prisons, police, etc. whose social function becomes clear during unrest. Like that is going to happen. The whole purpose of the state from its inception is to keep the classes divided.

Perhaps it is more palatable to the bourgeoisie to consider taxing workers directly rather than making a profit and dividing it off to pay for the state. But in the end, it is all the labor of the workers that has to pay this, out of the surplus value they have created thorough exploitation of their labour.

Nicholas Jay Boyes

Milwaukee Wisconsin

American Democratic Republic