Protest at Wells Fargo Annual Shareholders Meeting 4/27

Nationalize The Banks To Solve The Crisis They Caused
The Banks Are The Problem!
Statement of Peace and Freedom Party Labor Committee

We are in the midst of a severe economic crisis globally, not just in California or the US. It is not just a periodic recession. Over 20% of workers are out of full time employment in the US. Millions of US worker homes are in foreclosure and millions more are on the brink of it. But the Republicans and Democrats bailed out the banks and the financial institutions with trillions of dollars of public funds as loans and guarantees; instead of helping the homeowners reduce their loans on “under water” homes and helping the unemployed get work. It did not help the workers, but it prevented the collapse of “free market” economy i.e., capitalism; for the time being. Why? It’s because the financial system is the key to capitalism itself. It is well known that all capitalists seek profits greater than 10 percent. But why is it? We the workers barely get 1% to 5% when we deposit our savings in the bank?

It is because: (a) idle capital in machinery and accumulated in financial institutions wants its share of profit – and this grows continuously over time as a proportion to the human labor engaged with it, as a result of automation that arises out of competition between capitalists for profit; (b) the anarchy of the market has a built-in waste and uncertainty: demand and supply rarely match; (c) costs for storage, security, transportation and other contingencies, for which insurance is needed. These come out of the production profit; and (d) the cost of wars that are imposed to get cheap supply of raw materials and cheap labor. Only in (a) above is where there is a one way movement; it only grows over time. This growth is what eventually causes general systemic crisis as we see today.

Capital, which is only the past stolen wealth of workers, in its most abstract and fluid form is money, which thus accumulates in financial institutions: Banks, Stock Markets, and Insurance Companies thru which profits are equalized based on proportion of capital owned by capitalists. Workers get nothing out of it. Worker as “Middle Class” is a myth!

Financial institutions which provide credit thus play the same role as the Pope in Catholicism. These are the gateway to the heaven of accumulation for the capitalist class. Swindlers like Goldman- Sachs, AIG, Citi Bank etc., who were busy helping funnel the wealth produced by workers into the hands of capitalists, are thus immensely important to the system of accumulation of capitalism. US capitalists want to use their crisis to reduce workers wages further. This is why bank regulation and taxing the banks cannot solve the problem we have, source of which is capitalism itself now in its old age.

Yet Obama and the Democrats have given trillions of dollars to the banks while workers lose their homes and public services are being butchered.

The two party dominated political system today is fully controlled by capitalists whose only aim is profit, not welfare of society. The tea party activists are misguided citizens who have no idea of either the past youth of capitalism when it ransacked the world and subjugated most of the humanity and its progression to its old age now when it robbed them thru swindles. They look for simple solutions and a mythical past. Today we have what we did not have in early 20th century: enough ability to produce to meet all needs of global citizens. The only practical solution today therefore is socialized production under worker’s democratic control for common good of society rather than for private profit, that has waste, ecological crises and worker misery that capitalism produces. Only then can workers live in a world that does not slip under their feet, in harmony with each other and nature. In California and the US, workers produce enough wealth to meet all genuine needs of every person: healthy food, adequate clothing, good education & health care and old age security. But half of it is siphoned off to provide profit to capitalists, who share it among themselves based on prior worker produced wealth they privately own. Only production for social needs, not profits, all controlled democratically by workers themselves can solve this crisis.

We support mass democratic collective action of working people, students and the oppressed building on the March 4th action. Working people have the power to end the wars and remake this economy to benefit the working people and not the capitalists who profit from privatization, war and the attack on public services.

Support the Peace & Freedom Party which stands for socialization of the banks under worker and community control as the first step towards democratic control of production by workers and community.

3/24/2010
Peace & Freedom Labor Committee
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org