Forum Post: World Socialist Web Site Perspective: Unemployment and the global financial aristocracy

from today's Perspective on the World Socialist Web Site

Unemployment and the global financial aristocracy

Every dollar handed to the financial aristocracy must in turn be extracted from the flesh of the working class. Austerity measures have only undermined growth, depleting government treasuries, and thus requiring new doses of austerity. “In short,” the ILO writes, “there is a vicious cycle of a weaker economy affecting jobs and society, in turn depressing real investment and consumption, thus the economy and so on.”

Events Tuesday brought out sharply the relationship of the financial aristocracy to the overwhelming majority of the population. For his own purposes, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou proposed to put the most recent bailout/austerity scheme to a referendum. Financial markets reacted with horror at the prospect of the Greek or any other population having some democratic say on the course of events. The major powers and their propaganda machines mobilized themselves, insisting that the package had to be pushed through at any cost, and by the end of the day the future of the Greek government was in question.

At the same time, the divisions among these powers—over who will be forced to foot the bill and who will get the biggest share of the spoils—has precluded any coordinated international response. The crisis of the eurozone points to the reemergence of national conflicts, which in the 20th century sparked two catastrophic world wars.

http://wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/pers-n02.shtml