Not just a state or a national issue

Anyone who has seen the news lately might be excused for wondering if they're witnessing the 1930s rather than the 2010s. There have been riots and strikes in Greece and now England. In many ways labor's issues there are linked to labor's issues here. Today it was announced that though the government appears to have done nothing to solve the unemployment crisis the recent unemployed will not have the extended unemployment like those who were unemployed earlier. A turbulent fact in The Great Depression that often goes overlooked is what role capitalism extreme failure played in the rise of fascism. Hitler's SA were largely made of Germany's employed. The Nazis were wise enough to give them a uniform, some dignity, a little food, some alcohol and suddenly they had an extremely effective storm trooper army to take on their enemies. The banks, big business, and their employees in federal government would be foolish to ignore the fact that a vast pool of underemployed people in their midst. From the book the Age of Extremes The Times on January 23, 1943 reported, "Next to war, unemployment has been the most widespread, the most corroding malady of our generation: it is the specific social disease of Western civilization of our time."

It is clear one of the major problems is that capital is internationally mobile while labor, though it has gotten better, has been less so. It's like to this point the sides have been playing with two different sets of rules. To get a sense of the international nature of our times check out the video.