The auto industry is central to the economies of advanced capitalist countries. Including road construction, oil, steel, rubber and glass industries that produce for its needs, the total organization of auto production adds up to about 13% of the Gross Domestic Product of the major economies.

Because of this, Driving Over A Cliff, a detailed analysis of the industry, claims that "the auto industry is a massive generator of economic wealth..." What a lie!

It is a lie of omission. Really, it is the auto workers who are the massive generators of economic wealth. The capitalist state, its intellectuals and reporters,  repeatedly wipe out the central role of the working class in modern society. They want us to believe we are marginal.

Today, auto is a global industry which, like all other industries, has been gripped by the general crisis of capitalism. It's a crisis that raises some startling questions. Why, for example, does VW pay its German workers $67 per hour, while paying its US workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, only $27 per hour in wages and benefits?

Yet, this series of articles on the world's auto workers raises even more startling questions. Why do we need a wage system, period? Why do we need capital for investment? Why can't we produce for social need, not private profit?

They call it a crisis in capitalism. We feel it as a crisis in wage labor... trouble paying the bills, uncertainties about the future, our need for more wages means that it's our crisis. Yet despite what we feel, it's the needs of capital that dictate our situation.

In capitalist production, profits are not enough. They need the biggest market share they can get to beat their rivals. And they need the highest rate of profits to attract the investment they need to automate production and capture the biggest share of the market.

In all this they need us--the working class. But not as partners. They want us as wage workers. In capitalism no worker gets a job unless it generates a profit.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the average U.S. auto worker gets $37 per hour ($22 in wages and $15 in benefits). In that hour they produce about $240 worth of product (the statistics call it "value added"). The capitalist puts out $37 per hour and gets back $240. Not a bad system - for the capitalist!

To appreciate what a great deal it is, let's take 100,000 auto workers (there are actually more). Let's just look at one 40 hour shift (most plants run on two or three shifts). The wage and benefit investment for the capitalist is $37 x 40 x 100,000 = $148,000,000. The "value added" for the capitalist is $240 x 40 x 100,000 = $ 960,000,000! And they say the industrial working class is marginal!

Of course, that $960,000,000 doesn't all go into the pockets of the auto industry magnates. To begin with, it only exists as credit (fictitious money) until the cars are sold. That's one reason market share is important. Then  it has to be used to pay interest to the bankers for all the credit advanced, to pay the suppliers of the steel, glass, tires and energy that were used in production. Still, there is a sizeable chunk of cash concentrated in the hands of the auto bosses.

That "chunk" is not money as we know it: it's capital. As such, it's social and political power and can be used, invested or disposed of any way the capitalist likes. It's that capital, for example, that allows VW to move some production from $67 an hour in Germany to $22 an hour in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

No such freedom for us workers. Our wage is all but spent before we get it. First off $15               an hour out of the $37 is siphoned off to pay for benefits. We only get to see the $22 an hour, which translates into about what a family of four would need to meet "living wage" standards in Chattanooga, Tennessee or Detroit, Michigan.

This constant struggle to pay the bills and barely survive is a cycle that demands our attention so much that we could lose sight of the political, more general and important cycle. This is the cycle that sees our labor power creating their power and their power controlling us—even though we are the majority, ultimately with the decisive power! The wage system empowers capitalists and enslaves workers. Who needs it? 

Next Issue: How capitalist crisis affects workers globally