the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Sep 18, 2023
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Senator Tammy Duckworth have been crowing about landing a new factory. Gotion, the tenth largest battery maker in the world, plans to take over a former Kmart distribution center in Manteno, just north of Kankakee, at the edge of the South Suburbs. It will be a new battery plant, set to have 1,600 workers next year, they say, and 2,600 some time further in the future. Gotion says it will make enough batteries for half a million cars every year.
Gotion is based in China, but it is largely owned by Volkswagen. To “land” this factory, the politicians are dangling 536 million in taxpayer dollars, largely out of money the state has set aside for electric vehicles.
Apparently, companies, particularly electric vehicle companies, don’t make their money by producing anything. They promise to open up, and then milk the government for all that they can get—more than half a billion dollars in this case. The politicians are only too happy to oblige, handing billions from our taxes over to wealthy corporations like Volkswagen, while necessary public services like education and healthcare starve and rot.