By Ted Sprague
October 6, 2008

Before this whole financial crisis set in, the whole business establishment had been preaching about less government interference in the market and more privatization of the economy. Supposedly the profits they make will trickle down to the people (hey, we know what usually trickles down their legs). Now that they have bet on the wrong horses, we are supposed to pick up the tab, $700 billion, the biggest bailout in the history of capitalism.

When it is about them making profit, they’re all for capitalism. When it is about their losses, suddenly socialism is such a good idea. But don’t get fooled about this socialism, because first it is just for them rich and not for us. Their kind of socialism is about dumping their losses to the people while keeping their ownerships of the banks, factories, finance capital, etc. If they want socialism, let’s give them genuine socialism. This $700 billion cash shouldn’t be used as a bail-out. Let’s use this money to buy all of the failing banks and finance capital: Nationalize them all!

Unable to make super-profits anymore, finance capital will shut down the economy and throw millions of people out on the streets. That is how they function: no profits, no jobs. We have to ask ourselves this very question: why do we have to depend on them to provide jobs for us? Why do we need a middle-man to make profit so that we can work and feed our families? Cut out the middle man! We need to save the banks and thus our jobs and homes, but we have to do it on our terms, not theirs. Let’s save the banks and the finance capital by truly nationalizing them (since we are practically buying them out anyway with that planned $700 billion bailout) so that we can keep them open ourselves, so that we can keep the factories open and create jobs for ourselves, so that the profit usually made by these parasitic middle men can go straight to us and not trickled down their pants.

Let us be clear here, this is not just the fault of some incompetent bankers, stock traders, and CEOs; this is not about greed, as if everything will be dandy if they’ve read their Bible more often. This is the logic of the capitalist system, the cycle of boom and bust; the problem is that for most cases the boom is only for the capitalists and their lackeys and the bust is for the rest of us.

The capitalists behind these banks have shown their complete incompetence. We cannot depend on them to save our jobs, homes, and savings. They have again and again dropped the ball (remember 1870s, 1929, early 1980s, early 2000s); and we are the one who have had to bend over backward to pick up the ball for them while they position themselves comfortably behind us doing God knows what. I say let them drop the ball, kick them out of the game, and let’s play our own ball game with a new set of rules.

Ted Sprague is a second year Master student in Chemistry.