Recently I’ve been seeing tweets and other online media about companies that are providing support to their employees who may need help in getting access to abortions. The above image, an internal news relase from Dicks Sporting Goods exemplifies just that phenomenon. I cannot help but cringe when I see these stories and hear about the ways in which welfare capitalism continues to rear its ugly head. I am writing this piece to hopefully provide some clarity and historical background for why companies picking up the slack and providing support to their employees in getting access to abortions is terrifying and in the long run destructive for the working class.
Welfare Capitalism
To begin, a baseline historical understanding of the development of welfare capitalism is important. Welfare capitalism emerged in the US in response to a swelling of pro-union sentiment and high rates of turnover in large factories and industrial settings during the early 20th century. Companies started stepping in and offering welfare programs such as insurance, pensions, and financial aid to students themselves.
It was in the interest of these companies to provide things like healthcare, pensions, and insurance directly to their employees. By providing those welfare programs, the companies achieved several things. Firstly, these efforts in part curtailed unionization pushes. Business preempted the demands of the unions, and this can still be seen in practice now as companies like Starbucks and Amazon begin raising wages and offering better benefits to dissuade Union organizing. Companies fear an organized workplace more than they fear offering benefits to their workers. Secondly, it made workers dependent on their employers and not the state for access to important welfare programs. This gave employers an immense amount of power over workers, and continues to give incredible leverage to companies. Third, the growth of welfare capitalism reduced turnover rates and allowed companies to keep a consistent workforce, cutting their costs.
Welfare capitalism is a way to consolidate company and capitalist power over workers through offering benefits like insurance and pensions contingent on employment with the company.
Abortion Bans as Class War
Understanding that every law made by a capitalist government and a capitalist state is done with the class interests of the capitalists in mind, it becomes apparent that the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the abortion bans that will enter effect in the coming weeks are parts of the class war. The capitalist class has the simultaneous need for labor costs to be as low as possible to maximize profits, and a ready pool of laborers to draw from. As capitalists have spent the last several decades creating anti-regulation and austerity neoliberal policy, state and company support for new families has dwindled, and raising children has become an increasingly larger economic burden on families.
Now as workers are unable to financially support families, regardless of their desire to have families, the birth rates in the US are declining. There are several reasons for this, beyond just the socio-economic state of the nations. But, the fact remains that to capitalism, anything other than constant growth and expansion is death. Declines in birth rates and decline in labor pool are death to the capitalist, and utterly unacceptable to the capitalist class.
So instead of allowing themselves to be taxed in the pursuit of state-sponsored social programs like universal healthcare, paid parental leave, and free public education through the university level, the capitalists have elected to ban abortions in many states.
Welfare Capitalism and Abortion Bans
So given that abortion bans are an act of class war, and that welfare capitalism is not done in the interest of workers, it should be clear that the supposedly benevolent corporations promising to provide funds for abortion access are not acting in our best interests.
Because when these companies provide these programs, they weaken workers' connections to any non-corporate entity. The response to the banning of abortions in certain states has been calls for the building and growth of grassroots cross-region networks to provide abortion access by and for the people. And this is entirely unacceptable to the capitalist class. These organs of working class power and connectivity directly challenge the capitalists’ hegemony.
So in providing access to social programs and healthcare that states are unwilling to provide, the capitalist continues to consolidate their power. The capitalist undermines community-based alternatives and increases worker reliance on companies providing access to essential healthcare and social support.
As more companies release statements about supporting their workers seeking abortions, do not take it as progress or as a unprecedented act. It has over a century of precedent and over a century of harming working class power.
Where Do We Go From Here?
We build and we grow. In places where there are already networks of people working to provide access to abortion care to those in need, enter in these spaces carefully and help them grow. Build these networks in places they don't exist.
Grow Unions. If you're involved in your union, get involved in the governance of it. Grow your region and your city's central labor councils. Create organs of working class power that are not beholden to capital and capitalists.
It is of the utmost importance to grow and build these communities and organizations. Because the corporations are not going to save us, the parties of the bourgeoisie are not going to save us. No amount of voting blue can interrupt the gears of the system. Build working class power, build dual power, build independent labor parties, because only the working class can defend the working class!
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