What’s up with ‘Buy America’?

Carlos: Hey, Sue. I went to Washington, D.C., on Oct. 2 to fight for jobs. It was a great crowd, we were ready to fight, but someone tried to sell me a T-shirt that said, “Buy America, Stop China.”

Sue: Well, won’t that help create jobs?

Carlos: Nope. It just supports big corporations in their international competition for profits. It never worked before, and it’s dangerous and can lead to wars. These companies never turn around and hire when they’re rolling in profits like they are now.

Sue: You mean the way General Motors got bailout money and then closed more plants?

Carlos: Yeah. And it’s worse than that. U.S. banks and companies go all around the world to find where labor is cheapest. When workers in those countries rise up, the U.S. government invades or supports dictators to keep the status quo. Like in Honduras when an illegal coup took over last year to prevent workers from organizing.

Sue: I heard workers all over Bangladesh have fought against low wages paid by U.S. companies. I see your point. We should unite with workers around the world to raise wages instead of supporting companies who want to lower wages anywhere.

Carlos: I just don’t get how our unions could buy into all this anti-China stuff.

Sue: But aren’t we losing jobs because of China? Hey, here’s Lucy and Abdul. Let’s see what they think.

Lucy: I’ll tell you what I think. I think we’re losing jobs because capitalism needs a global army of the unemployed so that we are in competition with each other and they can drive down wages. We’re losing jobs despite record profits, because they’re gambling on the stock market instead of hiring us to do productive, critical work that is sorely needed.

Abdul: We’re losing jobs because we’re so productive as workers that we overproduce what can be sold for a profit, even if it’s needed. We’re losing jobs because we’re unemployed or our wages are too low, and we can’t buy the products other workers are making. The more the world’s workers produce, the worse it gets for us under capitalism!

Sue: I guess you’re right. For years our unions supported ‘Buy America’ corporate schemes — and you know what? It only strengthened companies that turned around and laid us off. Why in hell should we do that again?

Abdul: It’s perfectly legal for U.S. companies to run away to other countries. The U.S. government even gives our tax money to subsidize them and troops to protect them. Then the companies put the profits in offshore accounts and pay no taxes on them.

Sue: You know what makes me mad? The banks are making record profits and have got billions of our tax dollars, but still no jobs. Homes are foreclosed while tax money is given to the banks. Do bankers really run this country?

Abdul: Corporations are getting zero- percent-interest loans using our tax money and then they cut jobs. The CEOs should be in jail!

Carlos: Unemployment, rising poverty for us, while they’re sipping $10,000 bottles of champagne and celebrating their ‘recovery.’ The bankers are sitting on mountains of money our labor created and gambling with it on the stock market rather than putting us to work.

Lucy: Why is that even legal? But doesn’t China unfairly manipulate currency while we have free trade? The government just passed a so-called jobs bill, but it’s all about tariffs on Chinese imports.

Sue: Oh great, another bill that won’t produce a single job, just distract us from the real causes of unemployment.

Carlos: There’s no such thing as free or fair trade. The U.S. forces every country to trade in U.S. dollars. Is that fair? To get dollars other countries have to export to the U.S. Bankers in the U.S. trade currency and sometimes impoverish entire countries. U.S. capitalists want no restrictions on their actions, then they whine about other countries and we’re supposed to run to their aid.

Abdul: Capitalism depends on making profit off the labor of workers because we produce much more than we ever get in return. A few capitalists steal most of the product of our labor, here and around the world. It’s called “profit.”

Carlos: Imagine if we all got together, including immigrant workers and the unemployed and youth, and demanded a national jobs program. Workers and the unemployed did that in the 1930s. They fought for and they won the WPA. We can do that. There’s plenty of money in the federal treasury, it’s just not going to the people.

Lucy: Yeah, or go on strike like they just did in France, Greece, Spain and Bangladesh. The workers there are saying to the capitalists, “It’s your deficit not ours.” We ought to do the same here.

Carlos, Sue and Abdul: Sounds good to us!