Capitalism: Bankrupt Poverty In The United States

In order to challenge and disrupt poverty certain mobilizations are necessary in order to build a united political movement that defends one another where strategies and tactics can be used to win demands and objectives that were once seen as difficult to accomplish. Clarke explains on the behalf of OCAP that if the poor become troublesome, they cease to be a useful means of undermining employed workers and become, instead, a “problematic (and potentially infectious) source of discontent” (Clarke, 2011). The more mobilized, active, and resistant poor people are the less they will be used against other segments of society. By this, a means of active engagement is encouraged through OCAP, reaching out to individuals about how resistance is firmly
Labban writes in his about how capitalism affects workers in the city of New York where in it he estimated that 84 percent of workers in fast food restaurants in New York City experienced one “instance of wage theft in 2012 and many have been subjected to multiple instances of wage theft” (Labban, 2013). Wage theft is not only restricted to fast food workers as it reaches a wide number of workers in a wide range of low-wage jobs across industries of all sizes. Individuals who work in factories are often exploited and paid wages that are insufficient enough to maintain a lifestyle that will bring them above the poverty line, this creates a surplus wealth for the capitalist class. A surplus value, as described by McNally is when the amount of work exceeding the value of wages paid which begins to generate an accumulation of wealth into the hands of the employer which is often then reinvested to continue to create more wealth. This value is always excess of their labor cost thus it is available to the capitalist (McNalley,
Do to this the majority of the plants and corporations reach bankruptcy and cut wages of their employees. This is the primary cause of poverty that we see prevalent today. The concept of surplus value and the regeneration of wealth is practiced by capitalists in order to maintain in business, regardless of the cutbacks they have to make. An example of includes how the liberals are getting away with slashing social assistance. Every year since the liberals have been in power people on social assistance have received additional cuts to their rates (Withers, YEAR). The Liberal government also refused to raise social assistance rates with inflation. With these cutbacks on welfare it provided an accumulation of wealth that benefitted the liberal class and hurt the working class. In a capitalism economy, exploitation of human labor is the order of the day. The owners of private businesses and corporations tend to work towards the surplus value by engaging their workers in surplus labor which goes unpaid for. Precisely, surplus value is directly linked to the increasing rate of human labor exploitation and capital accumulation by capitalists (McNalley, PAGE). Together this generates a profit where accumulation grows to an extent