UNRENTABLE, UNITE!
Capitalism is not a possibility, but a threat for mankind. Even
many in better positions start to realize it. The underlying
logic to this system is as simpler as brutal: finally, the right
to exist is guaranteed only for what or who is profitable. Just
profit is not enough, it has to reach the height of profitability
standard whose level, in capitalist-financial terms, is placed
higher and higher every time.
This means two things: In the first place, capital has na
insatiable greed for human work that it must transform in more
capital, looking forward to the objective of irrational
appraisal. From this point of view, people is material, "
manpower ", and nothing else. In second place, work is
"valid" only as a means of profitability. Capitalist
greed for vital human force exploitation is forced to follow this
mechanism.
In a certain way, this essential brutality is in ambush in the
unconsciousness of the system’s order. It is so terrible
that nobody wants to see it, nor managers, politicians or
ideologists. But it exists, and it sticks to its final
consequences: All those without working capability are
"worthless lives" at first sight. So are children and
adolescents under working age, except if they are extenuated as
work material as soon as they can walk. So are sick and
handicapped persons, and so far, because they represent expenses.
And obviously so are aged people that no longer have capability
to work. The same principle is applied to them, except if they
become profitable even on their deathbed. Finally, so are the
jobless that become "surplus". Capitalist logic not
only passes this sentence on individuals, but also on circles and
institutions: formation, education, social services, health
services, art and culture, seem dead expenses that should be
ruled out.
Obviously, whatever society applies this logic will immediately
enter collapse. But it is the logic of capital, blindfolded and
insensitive as a physical process. Capitalism has to be somehow
deceived in order to leave humanity as material for its own
insatiable demands. Originally, survival in this context and with
"unrentable needs", was only women's task. The
appraisal process hasn’t rejected the feminine flesh, that
is to say, "the nerve, the muscle, the brain" (Marx).
However, a double burden has been imposed to women. The same
thing took place in capitalist societies of State in the old East
block, in the western centres or in the shantytowns of the Third
World: after concluding their daily work, true work begins with
the reproduction work for the part of "valueless" life
from the capitalist point of view.
Women living alone should have succumbed a long time ago under this burden, or society should have dissolved. That is the reason why the State had to create additional secondary areas, derived of the "valueless" life" outside profitability, by means of taxes, contributions and security systems, therefore, in a certain way by means of the "bleeding" of the profitable process of appraisal. In accordance with its distance, this was seen as more or less "social". And the historical criticism of capitalism was limited in great measure to the quantity of the bleeding, while the terrible basic logic remained intact, in the shade. This was possible (with the crises interruptions) while the appraisal process was historically rising, and could absorb more and more profitable work. But with the third industrial revolution, this expansion has stopped. The level of profitability is too high; it surpasses more valid people able to work. As consequence, the bleeding of the appraisal for the secondary areas is worn down.
The jellyfish head, hidden up to this days, becomes visible to
capitalist logic. In the entire world the "no-profitable
ones" have to test the respective "life’s
devaluation" absolute or relative. It affects in the first
place long term unemployed people, children and teenagers, the
sick, the handicapped and the old. The speed of this process
depends on the country and the situation in the world market, we
walk in this direction without stop. Also in the RFA, hardly
relatively "rich" in the capitalist way: the benefits
of the social insurance will be diminished, the medical cares,
the assistance to the sick and old persons are decreasing, the
social pensions are deviated, the nursery schools are closed. In
schools, the mortar falls down from the walls, didactic material
is old ant out of date. W don’t see the end of new projects
of cuts. Quietly, the whole social reproduction is buried.
"Agenda 2010" is an agenda about insanity of
profitability that no longer recognizes any social or moral
barrier, because its margin has become too narrow. Political and
economic classes only come back on the silent social capitalist
physics. And the old and abandoned criticism of capitalism,
limited to simple bleeding of the appraisal declines. The old
specialists of the social improvement have been recycled to the
cosmetic limitation of damages in the deteriorations. Those
supposed to bury capitalism have become assistants to those who
bury mankind. Under these historically new circumstances, the old
social-democratic union role has become, in terms of its social
content, its contrary.
It would be flattering to call corrupt commitment the result of
the weak revolt against the "Agenda 2010",
unfortunately predictable. Where the government's ability should
be sacrificed on behalf of social resistance, on the contrary it
sacrificed social resistance on behalf of government's
capability. But things won't be limited to this Agenda. What they
want to sell as sacrifice for the supposed substantial
maintenance of the "unprintable" vital areas is only
one part of the way toward the historical dead end alley of the
capitalist cannibalism. This system of biophobia is no longer
allowed to deceive. It is the own absurd principle of
profitability that has to fall: Non profitable, unite!
02.05.2003 Original in German: Unrentable, vereinigt euch!
http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=34738&IDC=33&DB=Archiv
Translation into Portuguese: Nikola Grabski
http://obeco.planetaclix.pt/indice.htm
Translation from Portuguese into
Spanish: Daniel Cunha.
Translation from Spanish into English: Contracorriente