The impact of the policy of social plunder is seen in the deepening
of a malignant social crisis in country after country. In the US,
society is marching backwards, as the crying need for schools,
hospitals, affordable housing, pensions, the rebuilding of decrepit
roads, bridges, transportation, flood control, water and sewage, fire
control and electricity grids is met with the official response: “There
is no money.”
The result? Three straight years of declining life expectancy, record
addiction and suicide rates, devastating wildfires and floods,
electricity cut-offs by profiteering utility companies. And a climate
crisis that cannot be addressed within the framework of a system
dominated by a money-mad plutocracy.
Not a single serious social problem can be addressed under conditions
where the ruling elite—through its bribed parties and politicians,
aided by its pro-capitalist trade unions and backed up by its courts,
police and troops—diverts resources from society to the accumulation of
ever more luxurious yachts, mansions, private islands and personal jets.
Where social reform is impossible, social revolution is inevitable.
The solution to the impasse is to be found in the growth of the class
struggle. The movement of workers and youth all over the world—from mass
strikes in France to strikes by autoworkers and teachers in the US,
protests in Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil, strikes and mass
demonstrations in Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and India—reveals the social force
that can and will put an end to capitalism.
-- Barry Grey, "Billionaires’ wealth surged in 2019" (WSWS).