Sears is trying to explain away the layoffs as due to enormous insurance claims for hurricane damage as well as the cost of compensating its customers for auto repair frauds uncovered by the government after years of investigation. Important as these special circumstances may be, one can be sure they were taken into consideration by the Sears financial staff and they are not the basic reason for the layoffs. The layoffs arise from the malfunctioning of the capitalist system as a whole. All throughout the history of capitalist crises, when the largest and sometimes most prestigious corporations go bankrupt or collapse, there are invariably disclosures of corruption. These are not accidental factors in capitalist enterprises but they are the invariable concomitant to the general operations of the capitalist system come profit or loss.
Corruption is inseparable from capitalism.
It becomes plainer every day that none of the giant corporations, whether in industry, merchandising, banking or insurance, pays the slightest attention to Clinton's alleged program of job creation. It is as though they live in another world, free from any kind of pressure either from the administration or from the workers. The Wall Street analysts are leading the clamor for greater efficiency and streamlining. They greet the mass dismissals with joy, forecasting greater profits on the basis of dismantling these huge establishments and downsizing the workforce. High tech like those at the big aircraft companies or IBM and Kodak mostly affect white workers.