Workers get pay cuts and layoffs. President Bush has suggested that the U.S. economy may be facing a recession. But over 150 years ago, Karl Marx and his friend Friedrich Engels called a recession a crisis of overproduction. They showed how overproduction caused workers' buying power to fall relative to the prices of the goods and services their labor produced. This crisis drives the gap between the richest and poorest U.S. households.
Overproduction is unique to the capitalist economy.
At its heart is the automotive industry. The paper ignored why the car market is decreasing and how joblessness weakens workers' buying power. Meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has reported that 83 percent of 25 cities surveyed had increased requests for emergency food assistance in 2000 versus 1999. Most of those requesting the emergency food had low-wage jobs. In a recent Children's Defense Fund study, every third child lives in a family that can't buy food after being forced off welfare.