PHOTO/ DAYMONJHARTLEY.COM
Detroit, once the preeminent and most thriving industrial city in America, is now one of the poorest cities in the country. It exemplifies the plans of a corporate ruling class for making the economic transition from industry to electronics, while preserving its private wealth and property.
With the appointment of corporate attorney Kevyn Orr as Emergency Financial Manager in March 2013, Michigan’s governor negated the authority of Detroit’s elected officials. In July, Orr dictated that Detroit file for bankruptcy, the largest U.S. city ever to do so. With its tax base declining, due mostly to the loss of industry – and along with it, decent paying jobs, homeownership and resident population – Detroit has financial and pension debt obligations totaling $18.5 billion. If the bankruptcy filing succeeds, it is certain to set a precedent for other American cities and counties, where unfunded pension liabilities total $574 billion. Though the corporations and wealthy could easily be taxed to pay the debt, the debt is being used as an excuse to restructure Detroit and other cities in the interest of the corporations.
As Detroiters are dispossessed of everything they once had, including city pensioners if the bankruptcy succeeds, the corporations are raking it in. The profits of the Big Three Detroit automakers have reached record highs, with reported combined earnings of $13.5 billion last year. Detroit has plunged from 1.8 million residents in 1950, supported by an industrial base of 200,000 factory jobs, to a population of only 700,000 today. Only 20,000 factory jobs remain, while 36 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty line.
All public property in Detroit is being turned into corporate private property. With more than 70,000 abandoned buildings, 31,000 empty houses, and 90,000 vacant lots, most of Detroit has become a wasteland, with global corporations gobbling up land and property at bargain basement prices. One of Detroit’s newest corporate initiatives is TechTown Detroit. It seeks to lure high technology start-up companies (that hire relatively few workers) to downtown Detroit with state subsidized tax breaks and incentives, including cheap office rentals and low real estate prices.
Detroit is a prime example of how electronic production with robots and computers has replaced wageworker production. This electronic-based job replacement keeps accelerating throughout society. Jobs are being eliminated everywhere. Wageworker production is becoming obsolete and the American landscape is being littered with boarded up cities and towns.
Yet this electronic production is creating unlimited abundance for the first time in human history. The rub is that under a capitalist economy, those of us who are jobless or under-employed are still required to buy things the same way we did when we had jobs. There is no need to accept this kind of corporate enforced scarcity in a world of plenty. This epochal advance of laborless production has given us the wherewithal to distribute social production according to need.
Will Detroit be the harbinger of America’s future? There is no going back to the past. Forward is the only direction for the American people. We must go on the political offensive to take over the corporations and use that vast productive power in the interests of our entire society. If not, a tiny minority of corporate multi-millionaires and billionaires will continue to take us over. The future will be what we choose to make it!
Unfortunately, Detroit is the harbinger of what is to come for the future of many urban cities, its citizens and pensioners. This did not have to be so, however the convergence of events and the compromise of key political figures have assured that it will be so. The quality of life will and has diminished due to the greed and manipulation of our state and federal constitution and the local charter and ordinances. Only the hand of the “great I am” can judge the capricious acts of men and women willing to compromise the collective good!