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Communist Production Opens Up New Horizons

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WASHINGTON STATE, US, April 11--A corporate director assembled thousands in Boeing commercial aerospace to tell them the “good news.” Management will introduce 50 robots in one Auburn factory building. “Isn’t that cool!” he exclaimed.
“There go another 100 jobs,” responded a friendly Machinist later. 
The goal of automation in this profit system is capitalist efficiency. The bosses aim to produce more planes, faster with fewer workers. Then they flood the market, causing a crisis of overproduction.
Communist goals are the opposite. Communist production will be dedicated to producing for our needs, not a market. That changes everything. No more market crashes caused by the need of the capitalists to maximize their profits, by bosses swamping the market with all kinds of products that cannot be sold. It even changes how we use machines, the types of machines we make and how we organize production.
Capitalist propaganda asserts that automation is used to eliminate tedious, unsafe jobs. Actually, automation in the service of profit makes work more tedious and unsafe. Boeing recently introduced assembly-line belts to drag planes through the production cycle. Ladders have been knocked down and workers hurt as the line relentlessly moves on.
Communism will eliminate assembly lines. We won’t let some belt determine how fast we go or the quality of the work we do. We will rely on the collective wisdom of our fellow workers.
At Boeing, we work with a lot of machines that process metal: molding, cutting, bending etc. When there is no need to make more jets, we can work on other metal projects (but not under this system).
For example, a comrade worked in the Seattle schools. She and her friends were always scrounging for wheelchairs for needy students. “Wheelchairs are the most overpriced things in the world,” she still complains.
Machinists, teachers and health workers could figure out how to make thousands of wheelchairs, in collaboration with those who need to use them, if we lived in a communist society. They could be light-weight with advanced design using aerospace alloys. We could bring them to those in need around the world.
Over time, we’ll start to make lathes and mills that are no longer dedicated to churning out airplane parts.  We will no longer be subjected to profit-hungry corporations.  We won’t have to build the killing machines that Boeing produces (though not in Auburn) for imperialist armies. 
We’ll spend a lot of time designing machines and processes to fulfill the varied needs of our working-class brothers and sisters. Sometimes we’ll forgo machines to give the fruits of our labor a personal touch. What a life to look forward to!

Capitalist Balance Is a Sham
During the meeting, Boeing management beamed the Scales of Justice on a big screen in the front.  One side held a box called “business needs,” the other “people needs.” The scales were evenly balanced. “That’s what we want to do,” asserted the director, “balance business needs with people needs.”
“All in the service of company goals and objectives,” he concluded.
What a lie!  The objective of Boeing and every other corporation is to maximize profits.  The only “people needs” they care about are those of stockholders.
Ironically, socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had echoed this fake “balance” just a few weeks before at a Seattle rally. “We’ll tell the corporations they can’t have it all,” he vowed.
Why should corporations have anything at all?  Why should we even have corporations? 
In communism, we won’t.  Instead, communism will mobilize millions to set up production centers, integrated with educational centers. Rather than work to live, we will live to work for our common good. Work will be fulfilling, not a boring drudgery performed under the threat of starvation and homelessness. Communist production for need makes all this possible.

Official tent cities:

  Capitalist answer to Syrian refugee crisis and Seattle housing emergency, both created by the bosses themselves. Communism will mobilize masses to organize all available structures – including Boeing’s lavish corporate offices, if they are still standing – for use as temporary shelter.  Meanwhile we will design and start to build housing suitable for communist community life.

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