Labor Creates All Wealth

Throughout the "Labor and Sustainability Conference" this past weekend in St. Paul, it was repeatedly stressed that "labor creates all wealth."

This was a very important and fundamental observation that needs to be stressed over and over again.

Without working women and men who are employed in industry there would be no production of anything. There would be no profits for corporations to report to their stockholders; no coupons for the Wall Street bunch of thieves to clip.

Which brings up a most important topic: why have unions in this country been so slow to educate their members about this very basic truth and the economic fundamentals that flow from this?

Many conference participants observed that unions have been very slow to respond to issues concerning workplace issues and wages, plant closings, environmental issues and global warming largely because unions have done a very poor job of educating members.

This is going to have to change.

A starting point would be to build on the very successful "Labor and Sustainability Conference" with a follow-up conference on "Labor Economics."

The time has come to begin talking about the politics and economics of livelihood as we push forward with a progressive agenda where labor asserts it's right to fully participate in the decision making process.

It was good that a few Minnesota Legislators attended this conference to hear what workers themselves have to say about global warming. Now it is time for workers and progressive legislators to focus on the economic reasons why so many problems like poverty and global warming exist in the first place.

We need to fully understand the role of capitalism, and its most advanced imperialist form--- which is often referred to as "globalization" or "capitalist globalization", in order to comprehend the problems we are experiencing.

Workers need to comprehend and understand fully what is actually meant by the phrase "labor creates all wealth" if workers are to become fully empowered in order to actively participate in the decision making process.

We need to begin to focus on Marxist economics.