U.$. "Workers' " struggle rears its ugly head:

Cabbies unite to pollute the planet!

September 10 2008

A class struggle from the bottom of society has broken out in New York and Boston metropolitan areas. Cab-drivers are fighting for their right to pollute and prop up the decrepit U.$. auto industry by opposing recently imposed regulations phasing in the use of hybrid cars.

We have to admit that with Crown Victorias costing about $6000 or $7000 and hybrids costing in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, the new regulations are going to have the eventual effect of shrinking the cab driver industry as cabbies pass along costs to riders who will in turn make increased use of public transport in New York and Boston.

Nonetheless, though the new regulations are against the class interests of cab drivers and though cab drivers are often immigrants from the most difficult circumstances, MIM still opposes this particular class struggle that has seized the front page of successive days' issues of the "Metro" newspaper in Boston.

The cabbie struggle is conservative resistance to needed environmental and anti-anti-Japanese change. Since the early 1970s, it has been obvious that Japanese cars (Datsun/Nissan, Toyota, Honda) are more fuel efficient than Amerikan cars. By the 1980s, the Japanese automakers also won the reputation of building cars that lasted longer with fewer repairs needed. Amerikan nationalists switched to driving pickup trucks and then SUVs, because critics continued to favor Amerikan cars in those niches.

Only recently with the rise in the price of gasoline has the Amerikkkan had to choose between anti-Japanese chauvinism and anti-Arab chauvinism. Nonetheless, ever since the 1970s, the Japanese car was the choice for those concerned about use of oil and other resources utilized in auto manufacturing. Since Toyota and Honda are selling most of the hybrid cars, the gap between Amerikan and Japanese auto manufacturers has widened.

As in the "reason" Amerikans switched to ever worse fuel-guzzling trucks, "safety" is the Euro-Amerikan buzzword of choice. The hybrid vehicles are smaller than the old cabs and so the cab industry is raising scare tactics regarding accidents.(1)

The current energy crisis is a perfect example of the decadence of imperialism. Rather than getting cheaper with technological advance, energy is becoming more expensive for heating, electricity and vehicle use. The decadence is closely tied up with racist attitudes toward the rest of the world, with Amerikkkans tending to think they can make endless war on Arabs and keep stifling quotas on Japanese auto production--for the good of the Amerikkkan so-called worker.

There is no doubt that the class struggle over New York and Boston cabbies is the upper section of the bourgeoisie clamping down on lower sections. Sadly though, Amerikan capitalists and the upper ranks of the Amerikan petty-bourgeoisie are often more progressive than the labor aristocracy within U.$. borders, people with legal working rights at the bottom. The capitalist is well-off enough that the difference between a $7000 car and a $30000 car seems trivial. It is precisely this difference in outlook that enables the capitalist to insist on a new fleet of hybrid cars for the cab driver industry, and there is nothing that can change the auto-related environment quicker, because cab-drivers put 100,000 miles on a car in a year.

The trouble with Amerikan cab-drivers is that they do not have the "nothing to lose" outlook of a real proletariat. We saw a similar phenomenon in the Clinton vs. Obama contest in the Democratic primaries. Except in two states, Hillary Clinton beat Obama among non-college-educated whites by posing to the right on cultural issues and foreign policy--Iraq for instance. "Among white Democrats with high school educations or less, Clinton beats Obama by roughly a 2-to-1 margin."(2)

The irony is that the real backbone Obama supporters tend to think of themselves as Marxists or even "Maoists" who differ with MIM on the white working class. Yet is the white-collar professionals taking more progressive stands and it is the blue- collar whites supporting more conservative candidates--at least as defined within the highly twisted U.$. political spectrum.

By looking at the interests of the international proletariat and not Amerikan cab drivers, we can take the correct side of this struggle. Hybrid vehicles will use one-third of the gasoline, thus reducing consumption and contributing to lower costs of gasoline globally for people who really need the gasoline. Furthermore, the reduced pollution is a benefit to the whole international proletariat. Finally, though it took government regulation, it is also informal regulation that limited Japanese imports to the united $tates in the first place. If Japanese automakers do better because of increased demand for hybrid vehicles, they deserve the support. The upper end of exploiters is taking a less anti-Japanese stand.

The auto and steel industries in the united $tates made the conscious choice over decades of time to de-capitalize and not serve consumers in a progressive or forward-looking way. It was more profitable to raise stock prices by cutting costs and selling high-profit gas-guzzlers. In this way the Amerikan imperialists were hellbent on proving that they are more decadent than the Japanese imperialists, more useless and backward. They had 35 years since the 1973 oil crisis and the U.$. auto industry did not come up with fuel efficient cars or other advances and instead proclaimed shock that has left sales and stock prices declining rapidly. All the capital in the industry already left via dividends and other perks.

Now the U.$. auto industry is asking for $50 billion in loans from the U.S. Government to stay afloat in the midst of the rise in the price of gasoline.(3) It is an admission by banks and the auto industry of their own decadence, that they need to go to the government to keep the U.$. auto industry going.

Contrary to Obama and the social-democrats, the government is not the answer in an imperialist country. In an oppressed nation, an increased government role could represent a class struggle by exploited workers against the capitalist class. In a country with no exploited class, the government role is different. The government also has no progressive thrust, which is why it spends its money on the Pentagon. Securing jobs for people only makes them more conservative in most of the imperialist countries. Obama won only among the youngest people, the ones with the least influence from their job situations. As the years go on and class becomes more important, youth become Clinton voters. In the cabbie struggle, the government is playing a rare progressive role by opposing the "workers," who are actually mini-capitalist franchise owners in rich countries like the united $tates.

Notes:
1. "Hybrid cabs unsafe, new lawsuit claims," Metro, Boston, 10Sept2008, p. 1. ;
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j8qD3C-3WV6ahKMpl2Y48Nk4DXzgD933I7680
2. http://www.gallup.com/poll/106360/Obama-Dominates-Clinton-Among-College-Graduates.aspx
3. http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080910/BUSINESS01/809100342&imw=Y