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
Feb 17, 2003
California Governor Gray Davis has proposed enormous cuts in all the services and programs that benefit the workers and poor: schools, health care, welfare. But there is one significant part of the state budget that Davis actually wants to expand: prisons. Davis proposes opening a new maximum-security prison, building a new, 160-million-dollar department headquarters, and remodeling and expanding California’s death row to the tune of 220 million dollars.
From the bosses’ viewpoint, this makes perfect sense. Companies have been busy laying off workers by the thousands to protect their profits. And the state is getting rid of social programs. The bosses know that throwing so many workers in the street without any help can only mean one thing: a foreseeable increase in crime.
What a comment on 21st century American capitalism: its biggest "growth industry" is the prison system.