There are around 40 million people in
the United States who are unemployed. These people want to work, and
must work to survive and provide for their families.
The companies who could hire these
unemployed workers have plenty of money to do so. They have made
record profits and have received billions in bailouts from our tax
dollars.
But these companies do not hire us, not
because they cannot afford it, but because they fear that if they
produce too much they won’t be able to sell it all. The cost of
labor would cut into their profits—so they decide not to hire, even
with record profits, and keep unemployment numbers surging.
We have the right to vote; the right to
free speech and the right to assemble. But we do not have the right
to a job. The employers, however, have the right to lay us off in the
millions, ruining lives, in order to protect their profit margin. The
decision over whether or not to employ the masses of unemployed, with
the wealth we create in the first place, is in the hands of the 1%.
Such power wielded over millions of lives, enriching a tiny few at
the expense of the majority, is not a just or “democratic”
system. That is a form of tyranny.
