Flint Michigan, once proud city of automotive production, and the-sit down strike, is suffering from lead poisoning, at the hands of state government. Flint’s Emergency Manager, appointed by the governor, switched its water supply from the Detroit system (lake water) to water from the polluted Flint River on April 25, 2014, to “save money.” The water was coming out of the tap brown and smelly and making people sick. Despite public protests, the city and state did nothing.
Finally, last September, independent researchers proved there were high levels of lead in Flint’s tap water. In October, county officials declared a public health emergency in Flint, and Gov. Snyder, under pressure, announced the city would switch back to Detroit water, but he never took a single step in that direction.
This issue burst into the consciousness of the American people and shines a spotlight on the Emergency manager system. The EFM system is an institution not yet known to the rest of America, except for some school districts which have been taken over. The emergency manager system strips local government of all authority and in its place establishes a one-person dictatorship with the authority to make financial decisions for the area, to nullify union agreements, to abolish existing union contracts and to sell off city assets to pay bankers. The emergency manager system is the face of American fascism in the era of the robotic economy.
Flint, Michigan is a harsh reminder of the state of poverty in America today. In the past century, Flint was an economically viable center of automotive production, which made it possible to raise children and enjoy a stable economic future. The shift of production South and the introduction of robotics and electronics in the early 1970s changed everything in the state of Michigan and, indeed, all of America. The lead poisoning of the people of Flint, Michigan has become a rallying point for the poverty-stricken masses of America in their struggle for clean and affordable water rates and free distribution of water even to folks who have no money or regular income.
What is the answer?
Only through public ownership can the people be provided clean and safe water regardless of ability to pay. Flint, Michigan is home to some of the greatest labor organizers of the past period. Their heroic struggles raised the standard of living not only for the people of Michigan but for the country as a whole. What today’s struggle shows is that under the conditions of robotic production our strategy, our vision and our struggle must be geared around the question of property itself and who controls the state and government. In the previous era struggles around wages and working conditions could be won because labor was needed. Struggles around housing and quality-of-life conditions could also be one on that same basis.
But things have changed. Robotics renders human labor unnecessary to this economic system. That renders the humans unable to win demands from this system. The demand is for fundamental change.
