The ruling
class and Ill distribution of wealth
-
- CAPITALIST has always flourished in
every third world country. In the Philippines where 60%
of the population subsist below poverty line, the gap
between the elite and the poor is seemingly
un-justifiable. While the rich bourgeouise
- wallow in their wealth the poor
merely subsist and continues to live a life beyond human
dignity. The state leaders, mindless of this fact,
protects the interest of the capitalists and lives off
luxuriously while the people who elected them to seat
struggle to live on a daily basis.
The
State and the Capitalists
- THE GOVERNMENT - a pragmatic
instrument of the capitalists forsee's and upholds the
smooth implementation of the capitalist doctrines, to the
extent of altering the Constitution of the Republic under
the guise of economic advantages. Such is the power of
capitalists to dictate and impose its principles.
Philippines is now undergoing a constitutional revision
that allegedly aims at bringing about the over all
panacea for poverty and social justice throughout the
country. This is a blatant lie. To lure its people with
false hopes and promises of a better life which in
reality merely benefits the rich and countries exploitive
elite. To allow foreign ownership of Philippine land for
business investment purposes is already tantamount to
selling the whole country itself and enslaving our people
eternally. Since it’s true that we were sold by
Spaniards to Americans from the past, are we willing to
sell ourselves to capitalists of diverse nationalities,
and become slaves forever?
-
- For what gain do we achieve out of
the trade from these foreign capitalist? In a general its
a trade of our labor for subsistence. We work for
sustenance, on a daily basis while they exploit our labor
to double or even quadruple their capital gain. What we
earn each day would be gone tomorrow, and eventually we
are back to the grind like a cog on a wheel, a vicious
cycle of hand to mouth existence. An evil of capitalism
that started to plague men from the past. As history
unfolds the same plague re-appears to infest the working
class. To live on a subsistence like this is living like
beasts on the field. For what draws us apart from farm
animals is our intellect and our desire to lead a life of
equality, justice and comfort. To merely trade our labor
for our daily subsistence is leading a life of slavery
and therefore living like a farm animal that toils
dragging the plows of the capitalism. A third world
country like the Philippines where capital is owned by
few rich capitalist, small scale businesses collapse and
only the fittest thrive. As it's true that profit is
proportion to its size, As capital multiply, acquired by
different hands, as a result of competition, profits on
capital diminish. So small capitalists dwindle. Such is
true in the Philippines where the this tragic reality has
rooted deep into our economic system all the way within
the government organizations, from the Spanish era up
until the American colonization of our dear country.
Instead of doing away from these social injustices, we
allowed it to advance generations onward.
Crooked
Political System
- CROOKED POLITICAL SYSTEM, and
greedy capitalists work hand in hand to grow into
monstrous proportion, satisfying thier insatiable craving
for wealth and fame at the expense of the indigent. This
has made the poor to live more miserable and the rich to
grow to an un-imaginable height. These conditions gave
birth to radicalism and idealism from the working class.
The same parent that gave birth to Maoist and Marx'ian
principles, conceived out of necessity to bestow a better
life for the poor and the equal distribution of wealth
among the people. From these conditions radicalism and
class struggle was born in the Philippines.
-
- What is it that takes place in the
exchange between the capitalist and the wage-labor? The
laborer receives means of subsistence in exchange for his
labor-power; the capitalist receives, in exchange for his
means of subsistence, labor, the productive activity of
the laborer, the creative force by which the worker not
only replaces what he consumes, but also gives to the
accumulated labor a greater value than it previously
possessed. The laborer gets from the capitalist a portion
of the existing means of subsistence. For what purpose do
these means of subsistence serve him? For immediate
consumption. But as soon as I consume the means of
subsistence, they are irrevocably lost to me, unless I
employ the time during which these means sustain my life
in producing new means of subsistence, in creating by my
labor new values in place of the values lost in
consumption. But it is just this noble reproductive power
that the laborer surrenders to the capitalist in exchange
for means of subsistence received.
-
- Consequently, he has lost it for
himself. For example. For one peso a laborer works all
day long in the fields of a farmer, to whom he thus
secures a return of two pesos. The farmer not only
receives the replaced value which he has given to the day
laborer, he has doubled it. Therefore, he has consumed
the one pesos that he gave to the day laborer in a
fruitful, productive manner. For the one peso he has
bought the labor-power of the day-laborer, which creates
products of the soil of twice the value, and out of one
peso makes two. The day-laborer, on the contrary,
receives in the place of his productive force, whose
results he has just surrendered to the farmer, one peso
which he exchanges for means of subsistence, which he
consumes more or less quickly. The single peso has
therefore been consumed in a double manner --
reproductively for the capitalist, for it has been
exchanged for labor-power, which brought forth two pesos;
unproductively for the worker, for it has been exchanged
for means of subsistence which are lost for ever, and
whose value he can obtain again only by repeating the
same exchange with the farmer. Capital therefore
presupposes wage-labor; wage-labor presupposes capital.
They condition each other; each brings the other into
existence.
-
- Does a worker in a cotton factory
produce only cotton? No. He produces capital. He produces
values which serve anew to command his work and to create
by means of it new values. Capital can multiply itself
only by exchanging itself for labor-power, by calling
wage-labor into life. The labor-power of the wage-laborer
can exchange itself for capital only by increasing
capital, by strengthening that very power whose slave it
is. Increase of capital, therefore, is increase of the
proletariat, i.e., of the working class. But what is
growth of productive capital? Growth of the power of
accumulated labor over living labor; growth of the rule
of the bourgeoisie over the working class. When
wage-labor produces the alien wealth dominating it, the
power hostile to it, capital, there flow back to it its
means of employment -- i.e., its means of subsistence,
under the condition that it again become a part of
capital, that is become again the lever whereby capital
is to be forced into an accelerated expansive movement.
- WAGES are determined above all by
their relation to the gain, the profit of the capitalist.
An appreciable rise in wages presupposes a rapid growth
of productive capital. Rapid growth of productive capital
calls forth just as rapid a growth of wealth, of luxury,
of social needs and social pleasures. Therefore, although
the pleasures of the laborer have increased, the social
gratification which they afford has fallen in comparison
with the increased pleasures of the capitalist, which are
inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the stage
of development of society in general. Our wants and
pleasures have their origin in society; we therefore
measure them in relation to society; we do not measure
them in relation to the objects which serve for their
gratification. Since they are of a social nature, they
are of a relative nature.
- But wages are not at all determined
merely by the sum of commodities for which they may be
exchanged. Other factors enter into the problem. What the
workers directly receive for their labor-power is a
certain sum of money. Are wages determined merely by this
money price? In the 16th century, the gold and silver
circulation in Europe increased in consequence of the
discovery of richer and more easily worked mines in
America. The value of gold and silver, therefore, fell in
relation to other commodities. The workers received the
same amount of coined silver for their labor-power as
before. The money price of their work remained the same,
and yet their wages had fallen, for in exchange for the
same amount of silver they obtained a smaller amount of
other commodities. This was one of the circumstances
which furthered the growth of capital, the rise of the
bourgeoisie, in the 18th century.
-
- Let us take another case. In the
winter of 1847 Europe, in consequence of bad harvest, the
most indispensable means of subsistence -- grains, meat,
butter, cheese, etc. -- rose greatly in price. Let us
suppose that the workers still received the same sum of
money for their labor-power as before. Did not their
wages fall? To be sure. For the same money they received
in exchange less bread, meat, etc. Their wages fell, not
because the value of silver was less, but because the
value of the means of subsistence had increased.
Conversely, let us suppose that the money price of
labor-power remained the same, while all agricultural and
manufactured commodities had fallen in price because of
the employment of new machines, of favorable seasons,
etc. For the same money the workers could now buy more
commodities of all kinds. Their wages have therefore
risen, just because their money value has not changed.
The money price of labor-power, the nominal wages, do not
therefore coincide with the actual or real wages -- i.e.,
with the amount of commodities which are actually given
in exchange for the wages. If then we speak of a rise or
fall of wages, we have to keep in mind not only the money
price of labor-power, the nominal wages, but also the
real wages.
- But neither the nominal wages --
i.e., the amount of money for which the laborer sells
himself to the capitalist -- nor the real wages -- i.e.,
the amount of commodities which he can buy for this money
-- exhausts the relations which are comprehended in the
term wages. Wages are determined above all by their
relations to the gain, the profit, of the capitalist. In
other words, wages are proportionate to relative
quantity.
-
- Real wages express the price of labor-power in
relation to the price of commodities; Relative wages, on
the other hand, express the share of immediate labor in
the value newly created by it, in relation to the share
of it which falls to accumulated labor, to capital. In
the Philippines, the value of the means of subsistence
had increased repeatedly and continues to grow year after
year regime after regime. From the Marcos up until the
Estrada administration, this increase has made the value
of the real wages fell and afflicted the ailing poor of
this country. With the continuous devaluation of
Philippine peso against the US dollar, as mandated by the
International Monetary Fund, countries poor and needy
continues to flounder in poverty, worst than its
precedence.
- CLASS WAR .Although capitalism is
the major form of social organisation in terms of
production, there are things that it can't do. Broadly
speaking it cannot supply the social organisation of
society, this hole is filled by something else - the
State. The State is the means by which a tiny minority
control and dominate the rest of us, in the interests of
the ruling power in our society - the capitalists. To
give you an idea of how small a minority we are talking
about, the often quoted figures are still true - that 7%
of the population owns 84% of the wealth. The state is a
set of institutions and bodies through which government
is exercised e.g. parliament, local government,
ministries, civil service, police,law,education, and the
church. The aim of government is to keep the lid on class
conflict, and to control competition between the
capitalist, to make sure of the smooth running of
society. It does this by enforcing the laws of private
property, and the right of capitalists to buy and sell.
It does'nt matter whether that property is land, food,
health, sex, factories, houses or anything else that
takes their fancy. Althou in the Philippines, the state
evidently limits the capital to very few hands to
maximize profits, to which the state partake. Not for the
electorate but for their (politicians) own personal
accounts.
-
- The State should come before
capitalism, and it has always been a form of control and
oppression in the interest of whatever ruling class is in
power, and whatever economic system they choose to use. But
the reality is that the power of the state
lies with the capitalists, and the states own officials -
they pull the strings. With power concentrated like it,
there is always the risk that a small group can mount an
attempt to gain control of the state. With these rich
industrialists, structurally placed in the govrnment,
their interests can be preserved even through legislation
under whatever guise they employ to preserve their
personal economic interest.
- After the american civil war, the
United States, having completed its reconstruction and
industrialization went on
- with its program of expansion and
imperialism. Expansionists looked further west towards
asia and pacific. Having realized
- the British control over Hongkong
and Singapore, American expansionists explored towards
asia to counteract British
- presence within the region,
furthermore American pioneers believed that to have a
strong navy island posessions is a must.
- At that time Philippines was under
spanish rule. War between filipinos and spaniards were
raging. In the eyes of the
- filipinos the United States and
Philippines were fighting one common enemy the spaniards.
But having won the Philippines from the spaniards, United
States distanced themselves from our revolutionaries who
provided them with valuable intelligence
- and personell support. Aguinaldo
hoping to achieve independence from the United States
after the war was disappointed.
- By late July of 1898, 12,000
american troops landed and the relationship between the
two countries deteriorated rapidly.
- To avoid humiliating defeat the
spanish government bargained with the United states,
turned over Philippines under
- american control in exchange for
$20 million dollars. This roused anger among the
Filipinos and hatred for the americans
- grew among te revolutionaries.
Tension grew. Aguinaldo was caught after declaring
indpendence without the support of the
- United States. He pledged
allegiance to the americans and called on his followers
to lay down their arms. The United States
- ruled our country and attempts to
seek for independence were discouraged. Treason act was
promulgated by the congress
- to discourage any filipino from
seeking independence from the states. We were slaves on
our own soil, serving a
- master from a foreign country. In
the past, we were sold to americans and now we are ready
to sell ourselves to another master.
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