The $15-an-hour movement calls itself a strike against poverty. We call it an adjustment to slavery--wage slavery. The movement claims it will fight racism and sexism too. We say it won't. As long as capitalism exists, so too will racism, sexism and poverty. Capitalism needs all three.

Socialists and liberals disagree. They argue that a more humane capitalism can be built. We point out even the heroic socialist revolutions of the last century (the ones in the Soviet Union and China) failed. And, we argue, they failed because they didn't abolish the wage system.

Wages dominate our lives so much that it's surprising how confused we are about them. Some think that union negotiations determine them; others that minimum wage legislation does it by setting a standard benchmark. While both play a role, wages are far more than dollars and cents (or whatever currency a given country uses).

Wages Subjugate Us

Wages keep us under the thumb of the capitalists just as in feudal times serfdom kept the peasants under the thumb of the dukes and kings. The first bitter reality of this system is that we all have to go cap-in-hand to the boss to get a job and earn a wage. Without a wage, or the pensions we store up as delayed wages, we couldn't survive.

The second bitter reality is that no wage will be earned unless it protects or expands the profits of capitalists. The wage system is a system the capitalist runs. It makes wealth for them. That wealth translates into power. Wages, whether minimum or maximum, empower them and subjugate us.

Whereas we see ourselves as strong, caring individuals, capitalists don't. They see us as units of production, as things! They calculate our worth as if we were a machine - how much does it cost to produce, maintain and replace when worn out. In human terms "replace" means bringing up a family, the next generation of wage workers. So it's no accident that no matter what country you live in, a "good wage" will hover somewhere around what is needed to house, feed, educate and raise a healthy family of four. Of course few of us work for the "good" wage. Most of us work for "a nearly-good wage" or a "not-so-good wage."

Behind the "good" wage are several degrees of poverty, which capitalism always claims it will eliminate. In 1964, US President Johnson declared "a War on Poverty." Then, since "the War" failed, subsequent Presidents introduced welfare reforms to "break the cycle of poverty!" Later, since the "cycle wasn't broken," Elizabeth Warren could note that in 2004, "more children would live through their parents bankruptcy than their parents' divorce." And now the talk is to attack poverty by raising the minimum wage.

Capitalism Needs Poverty

The reality is that capitalism needs poverty. The fear of it disciplines our class, making us go cap-in-hand to the boss when we know we should be going fist-in-air.

Today capitalists want to raise the minimum wage, not to eliminate poverty, but to cut the cost of government. If fast-food industries like McDonalds paid higher wages, their workers would no longer qualify for food stamps and other supplements. "This would save something in the order of tens of billions of dollars," claims multi-millionaire Ron Unz, editor of The American Conservative.

Of course, most $15/hr. activists could care a damn about that. They want to eliminate the rotten conditions capitalist exploitation produces and reproduces again and again. They are right, but it is a long march that doesn't go through City Councils and pleas for legislation. '

It's a march that rallies under the revolutionary slogans of "Abolish the Wage System" and "Fight for Communism." It's a march of a thousand miles that begins with the distribution of one Red Flag! It's a march the ICWP has already started. Join us on May Day!

What If the Union Called an Election and Nobody Showed Up?

The first thing Boeing workers noticed about the election of a new International Association of Machinists district president was the abysmal turnout. "The president was elected by his friends and family," was how one machinist put it.

He won office with 4.8% of the 45,000 eligible votes. The three candidates running received a little over 6%.

"Friends and family" was not too far from the truth. The vast majority of the 2,000+ votes the newly elected president got were from the over 1,000 appointed shop stewards and hundreds of paid union functionaries.

One hundred thirty-two Boeing workers took the last issue of Red Flag with a front-page article explaining the bankruptcy of trade union politics. Many more showed this article to their "friends and family." This led to scores of debates about the alternative: mobilizing the masses for communism and building the ICWP.