Naomi Klein wrote a well-received book recently, The Shock Doctrine, about how neocons use large-scale disasters to ram through economic policies which wouldn't have a chance in hell of making it through the democratic process. It's simple, whether in 2003 Iraq or post-Katrina New Orleans: wait until the public is "shocked and awed" to the point of complete social collapse and then while people are scrambling around for food, clean water, or the right to avoid being executed by Sunni death squads, install an AEI wet dream of a government and begin auctioning the entire area off to the highest bidder. That last part is optional, by the way. You'll notice that this process is little different from how cattle are slaughtered. A blow to the head. Unconsciousness. Strung up and dissected. Sell every usable part.
On a less grand scale, Christian Parenti has written a number of essays (and a pretty good book, Lockdown America) about Prison Economics. There are some similarities to Klein's theory, but instead of a single disaster the vultures simply take advantage of communities while they're weak and desperate. Take Crescent City, California for example. The state waited until the logging industry collapsed and the town was nearly vacant before they offered the dying town salvation in the form of 4,000 ultra-violent (not to mention predominantly black and Hispanic) Supermax prisoners at the shiny new Pelican Bay State Prison.
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Of course no community would want a Supermax prison any more than they would want a toxic waste dump or a massive landfill. But prisons, landfills, and waste dumps all have one thing in common: they end up in communities that are too broke to say No.
I daresay the remaining players in the auto industry who still have a pulse are taking advantage of a similar dynamic these days.
Perhaps you've seen the tale of West Point, Georgia, a typical rural craphole situated on the GA-AL border, which has been sent its salvation (quite literally) in the form of a new factory from KIA Motors, a subsidiary of the Korean Hyundai Corporation. With 20% of its rapidly-shrinking population under the Federal poverty line and more than 1/3rd receiving some form of government assistance, I can imagine why the folks of West Point are so thrilled to have KIA set up shop. And we must admit that an auto plant is a (relatively) pleasant economic savior compared to nuclear waste dumps and landfills. All things considered, the factory will be a good thing for the town. So why is it that this story feels so depressing?
West Point, the county, and the state laid out the usual smorgasbord of government cash to lure KIA or any other major employer to town. Has it really come to that in the United States? That in order to retain a manufacturing sector or provide any employment whatsoever for people outside of cities we have to bend over to the tune of $400,000,000 in free land, free amentites, tax breaks, and up-front cash payments? The factory and other employment sources which are expected to accompany it will provide something on the order of 7,500 jobs. That's probably an optimistic estimate, but let's go with it.
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Various governments with jurisdiction over West Point, Georgia just paid a foreign company $53,300 per job. That, apparently, is where we're at as a society.
If you don't find anything sad about that, try this video. The mayor of nearby Connorsville, Indiana speaks for a promotional video the town is using to woo an automaker – and it's not even a real one. It's some startup operation called Carbon Motors which will probably fold before making a single vehicle. The town has everything Carbon could want: desperation, terrible location, and an abandoned Visteon (Ford) auto parts factory.
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I managed to watch the video up to the point at which he began stridently reassuring his potential feudal lords that the town DOES in fact have a Red Lobster, albeit 3 miles away.
Local governments, Chambers of Commerce, and the like have always laid out a red carpet to attract potential large employers, but this level of grovelling and begging is a recent development. Rural towns have become the equivalent of a homeless person waving a sign reading "Will do anything for food" at passing cars. We could even leave aside the fact that it's disgusting because it sets communities against one another in an unwinnable race to the bottom (who can offer more tax breaks, who can most convincingly promise to keep the UAW out, who can grab their ankles the fastest and most enthusiastically). Even in a vacuum these stories are simply pathetic. Watching people in what claims to be the world's economic powerhouse fight to prostrate themselves before an employer and surrender to it completely – before it even gives them a job, no less – is enough to make Eugene Debs rise from his grave, which is not too far from Connersville, so he can die again of shame.
ladiesbane says:
You should have seen what Rio Rancho (a well-off suburb of Albuquerque) did and does for Intel. I'm not sure why RR is so butt-kissingly grateful. ABQ, for some reason, thought Intel would hire the graduates of their really bad schools for high-paying jobs in the tech sector. Of course, Intel hired world-class talent for design, out-of-state talent for fab, and locals for burger-flipping in the caf.
Misterben says:
How sad that suburbanization has so gutted America's small towns that they think they cannot survive unless they are connected to the life-support network of a global corporation.
What pisses me off is that states, counties, cities, and residents are more than willing to use the planning powers of the different levels of government when it comes to handing land and tax breaks over to foreign automakers, but any other time, and the old stupid libertarian arguments come to the fore again and again. A little foresight, a little positive planning, and a lot of towns, counties, and states would be in better shape than they are today.
(Whey I say "planning", I don't mean "5-year economic plan", I mean urban planning. The economic benefits of NOT rubber-stamping approval for every stupid sprawl project developers propose are abundantly clear.)
Z says:
There's a detailed discussion of this phenomenon in "Deer Hunting with Jesus" by Joe Bageant, which I highly recommend. The specific town he looks at is Winchester, VA, and the company Rubbermaid, but more importantly you get a comprehensive picture of the forces that drive the town into such dire straits. He leaves little doubt that while no one entity can be said to have consciously orchestrated the entire thing, collectively our society, as we now stand, seems to find what Ed describes above to be the acceptable product of the unencumbered free market.
It's infuriating even to those of us who aren't among the exploited class at the moment, but I think more and more of what remains of our manufacturing labor force is figuring it out, and suitably pissed off.
waldo says:
Sad doesn't even begin to desribe it.
waldo says:
*describe*
jazzbumpa says:
Excellent post. And a good catch comparing small town depression capitalism to the shock doctrine.
My only quibble is with your time line. This has been going on for decades.
Honda Marysville, OH 1982
Nissan Smyrna, TN 1983
NUMMI Fremont, CA 1984
Mazda Flat Rock, MI 1987
Diamomd Star Normal, Ill 1988
Etc.
All wholly or partly foreign
Grabbed the table data here:
http://books.google.com/books?id=J3vMT3TU_zMC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=mazda+flat+rock+michigan&source=bl&ots=z4I2jjoYOC&sig=JNfELMvh-NDgBBrmLbUWApuETiQ&hl=en&ei=vkZbSuK3NeGptgf67cmaCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=11
Flat rock gave enormous concessions over 20 years ago. I'll bet they haven't his break-even yet.
Christina says:
I've lived in these rural shitholes (Mt. Zion, GA. Greasy Creek, TN. Look 'em up on a map. I dare ya) and what the folks in charge always say at all the town meetings is, "We MUST save our town!" I always said, "Why? Why MUST this particular town be 'saved'? What is it about this town that makes it unlike every other bait shop that set up business at a crossroads? Can we not just be absorbed by the other shithole town down the road?"
I was often not invited to these meetings. I can't understand why…
Disgruntled Academic says:
If you're not a legitimate city, and you don't have mountains, oceans, dry heat, or a university, this is usually going to be a sad, futile effort. I don't care how much money I could make; I'm NOT moving to Connersville. People have been moving to cities steadily for, what, 100 years? Hiring one man or woman to be your town's economic developer (i.e., tax-break giver) isn't going to stem that tide.
Desargues says:
I think Christina has a point. Some of these places weren't meant to be populated to begin with. Settling new territory is a risky enterprise; some of it fails, quietly or spectacularly (e.g., Detroit). Rather than trying to put a BandAid on a wooden leg, better to move on (or back to the larger city or farming community where these adventurers left off in the first place).
And really, what conceivable future as part of 21st century Western civilization can these places have, when they're little more than sparse conglomerates of Jesus shacks, car dealerships, rusting post-industrial infrastructure, and laundromats (plus the inexorable gun store). I mean, come on.
I'm still puzzled by a manufacturer's decision to set up shop in places where under-education and a host social problems run rampant. It may only be car assembly, but not anyone can do it productively and skillfully.
jazzbumpa says:
Desargues –
21st century Western civilization will be nothing but sparse conglomerates of Jesus shacks, car dealerships, rusting post-industrial infrastructure, and laundromats (plus the inexorable gun store).
Manufacturers go there because the labor is cheap and unions non-existent. The people are down-trodden and depressed, but they are trainable and have low expectations.
Desargues says:
That sounds like the impending medium-term future, when Chinese sovereign wealth funds will be owning most of our asses. Sigh.
burple says:
My reaction was the same as jazzbumpa. In the fall of 1984, when I was a high school senior in Terre Haute, Indiana, all the kids in my US History class were made to write grovelling letters to the CEO of Toyota, begging him to locate Toyota's new plant in Terre Haute. As it turned out, Toyota must have found a place even shittier and more desperate than Terre Haute — Georgetown, Kentucky.
grendelkhan says:
I'm reminded of the descriptions of rural towns begging for meat-processing plants in Fast Food Nation and What's the Matter With Kansas?. There, the industries don't even pretend that they'll bring in high-tech or well-paid jobs, and they hardly even employ locals at all, because they can get away with treating scared immigrants worse.
It all seems faintly pagan to me, like I'm expecting the townsfolk to start offering up their young to be sacrificed so that the apple orchards will blossom again. On second thought, they already are offering up their young… but their town only gets more blighted.
grendelkhan says:
Oh, heck. I'll just quote Thomas Frank. What's the Matter With Kansas?, pages 54-55:
Yeah, that sounds about right.