(Catch up on Part I here)
OK, so what? It's not like I'm breaking new ground here in explaining that Gilded Age-style capitalism is a race to the bottom in terms of employee compensation. The important questions are: How long can this continue?
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and What can be done about it? Veteran readers know that I hate the latter question but we will take a stab at it regardless.
As for how long this stagnation or even decline in wages can continue, the answer depends on how deeply you believe that the kind of people who support Scott Walker from their decrepit apartments in dying rural towns barely clinging to life on a SSI- and eCig-based economy have internalized the ration of shit sold to them by conservative bag men for the last three decades. It is a system of values that convinces a person to put hyper-jingoistic bumper stickers on their rusted out 1987 Plymouth Voyager and declare that America is #1, a viewpoint espoused with complete confidence despite never having ventured beyond a fifty-mile radius of the place he was born save for one high school trip to the Big City (Joplin). It is a system of values intended to convince a person you are paying $9 per hour that he doesn't want the myriad things he can't afford – vacations (What kind of lazy grifter takes time off of work?), decent schools (Homeschoolin's where it's at! Teach 'em some TRUTH for once!), decent food (What are you, queer or somethin?), higher education (buncha liberal bullshit), or any kind of cultural stimulation of a variety more refined than semi-pro wrestling. Once a person has settled into this mindset to enjoy the greatest country on Earth from the vantage point of Dogpatch, Alabama, it's hard to have much an impact using facts or logic. If people need nothing more to be happy than beer, church, shitty American cars, and a ranch house in some backwater, they're going to work for $10 or $11 per hour for a long, long time before they can be convinced to agitate. Hell, at $10 per hour in Cleveland, MS you might even have excess income if your expectations have been sufficiently lowered. If you do, don't worry. The State Legislature will build a casino to take care of it.
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Conservatives are always telling us that no one can help us, rather we must help ourselves. Ironically, they're right in this instance. As long as people accept shit compensation and shittier treatment from their employers, they will continue to receive it.
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You can lead a horse to water, but if that horse watches Fox News eight hours per day it's going to be equal parts dumb, misinformed, and delusional. It will also probably hate black horses, and don't even get it started on donkeys. But I digress. This economic swamp we've been thrashing around in since 1980 will not be improved so long as millions of Americans fight to keep it as is.
That leaves us with the second question, what to do about it. Unfortunately I am not convinced that anything short of slow, steady progress by increments can have an effect. If the implosion of 2009 had no effect on attitudes toward taxation, wages, and government intervention in the economy then I can't imagine what kind of cataclysmic economic event would be required to change minds. We are witnessing the death throes of a group of people who are accustomed to living in "Their Country" and are sliding into demographic irrelevance.
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In a rare note of optimism, I will say that there is some hope to be found in increments in the last few years – a living wage law here, an extension of healthcare benefits there. These changes are being fought tooth-and-claw every step of the way, of course, but if you launch enough bombers you can guarantee that at least a few will make it to London. They're baby steps, but they're steps. Some people know what's up.
In the meantime, though, things will probably get worse before they get better as more states like Michigan and Wisconsin are depopulated and the electorate becomes one dominated by old, white, rural dead-enders with nowhere to go, like some economic Operation Gladio (and nearly as riddled with fascists). The iron law of globalized capitalism is that someone will always do it for less, and the only way right-wing elected officials will be able to compensate for promises of economic growth that never materialize no matter how many tax cuts are gifted to the Job Creators is to cut until they hit bone. Once that happens and their current gray-haired base of political support has gone to the great Denny's in the sky, we might have a chance. For people my age and younger, however, the changes won't come soon enough and we might as well get used to the fact that we are part of an economic lost generation.
Q says:
Hammurabi wouldn't put up with this shit.
HoosierPoli says:
Back in the old days, when towns were concentrated around a small city center and the Plant, people could concentrate in one place if they were of the mind to agitate for better wages and so forth. These days, with tract housing smeared loosely for miles and miles of suburbia hell, the old logistics of popular movements have been shattered. If every person in, let's say, Peoria, decided that they actually DID want to smash capitalism, where would they go? Where would they park? Are they gonna have a protest on the freeway, or break some windows at Wal-Mart? There IS no central point of protest for most towns and "cities" in the US anymore. If you want to be heard, I'm not sure where you'd go.
moderateindy says:
The solution is fairly simple, getting to that solution much more difficult. The wage stagnation, and increase in income inequality, both have a very direct correlation with the loss of union representation in this country. How we return to substantial growth in the ranks of unions is a very difficult question.
I am completely befuddled by the fact that people don't understand that having a powerful group negotiate your wages, and working conditions is always going to be beneficial to you in the long run. And they don't seem to get the concept that if you are in the same industry, and have the same type of job, even if you aren't in the union you benefit. I worked at a non union hotel years ago, and they paid wages that were higher than the going rate just to keep the employees from joining a union. And if the lower rung gets a raise then so do the next couple of rungs, including those in management. The only people that don't get the benefit are those at the very top whose compensation is derived in great quantity by the profitability of the company.
How do we get back to a point where unions have strength across the entire economy? No idea, but my guess is it will happen a lot like it did last time, without as much bloodshed. By which, I mean attitudes in the US, among the general populace will change both slowly, as the population ages and dies off, hence having fewer people willingly being bombarded by the right wing propoganda machine, and the change in attitude will come quickly after another catastrophic economic breakdown.
Animosity towards large corporations in this country has been steadily growing for the past 15 years. It's hard to believe now, but the tea party started as a grass roots group that was very Po'd about major corporations being bailed out by the gov't. The right saw what a possible game changer it could have been if old folks, and those on the right turned into economic populists, and quite brilliantly co-opted that movement, and moved the societal anger that comes from economic hard times from blaming the people that caused the problems, to blaming the gov't instead. I'm certain that having a Kenyan Muslim socialist usurper as the head of the gov't had nothing to do with enabling that change in group philosophy.
The future looks bleak, as legislation like right to work seems to be gaining momentum, but consider for a second that we are starting from a much better place than pro-union people began in the beginning of the last century. That way maybe the task seems less daunting.
Arslan says:
Being an eyewitness to Russia jumping the shark, I see signs of the same trends that made this place such a shithole. This article here describes an attitude in Russia known as "vatnost." http://readrussia.com/2015/03/06/vatnost-why-the-west-cant-understand-russia/
After reading it, you might notice some parallels with American conservatives. One of the most interesting parallels is the ability to hold onto mutually exclusive ideas so firmly. For example:
1. America is the best country in the world! I'm a PATRIOT!
2. America has been ruined by libruls, illegal immigrants, gays, greedy minorities, etc. etc. etc.
In other words, the American "patriot" usually hates most of his countrymen. When someone mentions welfare relief, the first thing that comes to mind is "Who's going to help ME?!" He simply cannot perceive that welfare for poorer people would: A. potentially be there for him if he needed it. B. Will stimulate the economy by getting people out of poverty and giving them the ability to purchase more goods and services.
This article warns about America's own vatnost threat: http://nobsrussia.com/2015/02/18/denims-american-vatniks/
Xynzee says:
Unfortunately Moderate, I have to disagree with one point you made. It will be bloody. Very bloody. As Gould opined, he could pay half to kill the other half.
Now if only we could just kill off that half, we'd get somewhere. ;)
What I find interesting are those who want to work at union shops because the conditions are so great, but squeal like scalded cats about either joining the union or paying the fees that ensure the conditions are so great. At the same time they squeal equally loud about their "hard earned" dollars going to those "lazy" dole bludgers.
Xynzee says:
As I see it. The major problem for the modern Left is that it easily finds itself being fractured. They allow for too many flags on the mast to compete for primacy. The message gets muddied and confused. Then it's easy for a wedge issue to shear off important voting blocks.
The Right has only has 3-4 and they hammer those constantly. Which allows them to elect who they need to get their agenda through.
The GFC really has brought to the fore how badly the game has been rigged against the average person. Many have come to realise that they've been played and are not happy. As noted by Moderate about the anger and resentment in what was originally part of the Teabaggers. Many had realised they'd been lied too over the war and other economic policies—how many had been burnt by the likes of Enron?—they've watched their kids and grand kids not find decent paying jobs and now their retirement funds had gone *poof*! "Never touch a man's inheritance, he'll never forgive you." Machiavelli (paraphrased)
This anger combined by the Right's policy to outsource anything and everything including it's own messaging arm to Faux Gnuz and to nutters like Limpbaugh or worse can be seen in the total disarray the party is in. Yes there's been some real crackers in the past—the Gangrenous-itch anyone—but they were manageable. Now they've got Angles and Atkins popping up like smallpox sores everywhere. They may have hated Slick Willy or Carter and gamed for political advantage, but they loved the country more to pull a stunt like we saw last week.
The Left needs make and not more than three related smaller items that have broad appeal and then start hammering them. Then deliver on it. If your pet project isn't there, deal with it or go vote for the other guys who you know will screw you over.
That's why I fear Hillary the most. She'll talk a good game, give people bread and circuses then deliver the Jeb Bush economic plan.
Anubis Bard says:
Moderateindy's right that without a labor movement, prospects are bleak. The one thing I'd respond to there is that people can be brought to understand that it makes sense to band together in order to have stronger voice. However, they very much don't see unions as the mechanism for that. Anti-union propaganda has been relentlessly effective.
Anubis Bard says:
Like a person dying in the desert who cannot think about anything except a glass of cold water, Americans just want a damned job that will pay their bills. There is no significant vision of economics or politics or cultural development outside of that. As long as we collectively stand hat in hand as supplicants at the enterprise door – they have all the power and we have nothing except a pretense of non-participation or an empty threat of resistance..
Anubis Bard says:
But I don't think it's only our own dysfunctional and shrunken ambitions that are to blame. I've heard White people ask why Black men put up with the systematic abuse they take at the hands of a racist system.
There's a very simple reason why. If they don't they are killed. Or put in prison.
Do you really doubt that people who try too hard to reverse our descent into serfdom won't have the full, dishonest violence of the state brought down upon them? The template is right there.
Or alternately, the US could adopt the system it's overseen places like Colombia and Mexico and just have labor organizers assassinated.
It's Monday morning and I haven't had my cup of optimism, yet, so I'm having trouble with the challenge you (and Chernyshevsky) pose of – Что делать?
Anonymous says:
I look at my college students and really worry about the future.
The problem is that they can't function in college, or as adults, *at all.* If there's any kind of snag, they just start fiddling around, hoping an authority figure will come along and tell them what to do.
Every year, in lab, I give them a bottle of medicine and ask them how many milligrams of medicine are in one pill. Instead of reading the label, they fiddle around with their calculators, for as long as half an hour, before I bail them out. This is fairly typical of their performance.
I've gotten to the point of just giving them exam questions, with answers, ahead of time. Typically, NONE of them can regurgitate the answer on the exam anyway. It's not that they're lazy. If I gave them a table of random numbers to memorize, I guarantee they could do that. But if you ask them to memorize an explanation, they won't even write it down, because high school taught them to ignore anything that made sense and memorize random crap.
ronzie says:
"the tea party started as a grass roots group that was very Po'd about major corporations being bailed out by the gov't"
I thought they were started by financiers who were afraid that the government might solve the mortgage crisis with a program that would allow homeowners to keep their homes, instead of losing them to the crooks who knowingly made bad loans while betting that they would default?
c u n d gulag says:
When the USSR, with it's own (highly inefficient) economic system, collapsed, I told people to be careful of what they wished for.
The threat of Communism kept our Capitalists from totally abusing labor, for fear of a revolution here.
Now, there's no longer any threat, and our Capitalists feel free do whatever the fuck it is they want to do.
And all they want to do, is make still more money!
And if it comes at the expense of others, well, that's a price they're willing to pay!
anotherbozo says:
Orwell feared the banning of books; Huxley feared no one would want to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information; Huxley feared those who would give us so much we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared the truth would be concealed from us; Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Scott Timberg (paraphrase), The Culture Crash
While ducking Ed's darts aimed at us oldsters, I applaud his discription of the problem. For unions to come back at this point would require a return of the industries that were outsourced years ago, probably, and the unionization of service-sector jobs would be better than nothing but un-transformative. But what do I know? I think the dynamic is different now, different from the days in the 50s when the playing field was beginning to level, or seemed to be. Then, as Huxley foresaw, the population has become drugged, fallen asleep, been distracted, systematically misinformed or uninformed; they don't read, they know more about Kim Kardashian than James Inhofe and may go for Jeb over Hillary based on corporate sponsorship.
But the Internet. Social connectedness. Digital flash mobs responding to political causes. All this is relatively new, and I daresay cohesiveness is growing among the younger and more involved. Yes, cute kittens, but also Elizabeth Warren, Cenk Uygur, Daily Kos, HuffPo. I plan to stay tuned, since the cockeyed optimist in me won't die. There may be some education taking place, some awareness growing, though there may not be any way so far to measure it.
John Danley says:
Powerball therapy is all that's left.
quixote says:
As usual, I agree with the post and agree with the commenters, but I wouldn't be climbing into comments if I didn't have a quibble, right?
This blog likes to maintain that part of the problem is the Olds and that we'll age out of that particular stupid.
It doesn't seem to me that the evidence supports that. When the Olds we have now were younger and the dominant population cohort, the country was more liberal, not less.
So, if you can really go by age groups, and those groups don't change over time, the current crop of Olds shouldn't be as big a problem as the blog sees them.
On the other hand, if people do change over time and most become crabbier and grabbier, then abandon all hope of aging out of that disease.
My guess is on option #2.
cromartie says:
White depopulation and an influx of persons of color who aren't so inclined to be wage slaves will solve the rural problem.
That'll leave you with the smoking remains of the late period suburban white folk to deal with. Those are the ones who won't go quietly.
Tina says:
Thank you~ I love your writing. You can articulate everything that I'm feeling and thinking! It's hard but we have to keep fighting! I have lived in WI my whole life and Scott Walker is killing us! I weep for my state and beware of this slimy POS! He is Nixon without the wit, charm and good looks! He cannot be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office!
Mo says:
Arslan – American conservative hate unions, too, because they grew up with people who, thanks to their unions, were making more than they were. So, being the great minds that they are, their whole focus was not to create unions for their own workplaces, too, but to destroy unions. That old joke about the Russian peasant and his neighbor's goat.
As a fan of Office Space, what I can see as potential goals to rally political action are:
1) Debt re-structuring, particularly education loans, credit card balances, and home mortgages. Predatory creditors get a haircut, borrowers get a structured bankruptcy and relief.
2) Full-time work being re-defined as 20 hours per week with all benefits and minimum wage being required for everyone right on down to babysitters
3) Tax the fuck out of the 1% – 70% on capital gains, inheritance tax that leave the heirs working minimum wage like everyone else
Freecookies says:
You mention specifics, but they're all just aspects of one thing – clinging to the past. Too many parts of Murica have given up on the future altogether, and are just clinging to what was.
I think it started in the 80s and has just gotten worse since.
Even trying to get Russia to play Cold War again (and talking about new moon missions) are just more aspects of this.
Hell, even Ferguson is just a reminiscence of Birmingham.
But time marches on and those who want to stay in the past, will disappear into the past.
Emerson Dameron says:
I was (somewhat) convinced that September 2008 marked the end of free-market libertarianism. It wiped out any residual faith I personally had in it.
Then came the Kenyan Usurper and Tea Party.
As a frequent redditor and thus a witness to what large groups of younger nerds think of politics, I'm struck by their apparent sharp turn to the right. I don't quite get it. I guess there's tons of barely repressed racism, out-and-out loathing for "social justice," absorption of the talking points you listed above, and the Pauls, a couple of theocrats who are purely regressive save for their support of legalized dank.
Bring on the increments, I guess.
mothra says:
Pretty sure unions are dead–the right wing has successfully demonized them and made them "The Enemy." Hell, I have a friend who hates unions because her dad got a good job as an air traffic controller when Reagan killed the air traffic controllers' union. No, it makes ZERO sense, but it is perfect evidence of just how very effective the right wing anti-union propaganda machine works.
Yeah, I say if the oligarchs just make sure the Bubbas have their bread and circuses, things will continue as they are forever. Particularly when the Republicans manage to remove the vote from minorities in every state.
geoff says:
Ed, I don't think blaming dumb southerners for voting against their economic interests is the way forward. (And not just because I am one.) I'm sure you read or at least saw summarized Princeton prof Martin Gilens and Northwestern's Benjamin Page's paper "proving" the U.S. is an oligarchy, and being a professional understand it better in its details than I do. So what exactly do the voting patterns of the American electorate really have to do with political decisions made by "our" elected representatives? (And our unelected government bureaucracy?) Evidently very little. I feel like President Obama is an excellent case in point. I thought I was voting for an end to mideast wars and financial corruption (and I am old enough to have known better) and what did we get? More war and an increase in the speed with which the richest suck up what little wealth remains.
geoff says:
PS, O/T, but I also was hoping for an end to unlimited and illegal government surveillance, but y'know, not happening.
MPAVictoria says:
"As a frequent redditor and thus a witness to what large groups of younger nerds think of politics,"
Reddit is probably not a good sample of what young nerds actually think about politics.
Emerson Dameron says:
@MPAVictoria:
Fair enough, but it seemed to skew left-libertarian until rather recently. I'm just surprised the right-wing Cool Contrarians of the Clinton era are making a comeback anywhere, post-2008.
Noel Barrett says:
Echoing Xynzee, yes the left does have too many issues,though they could be organized under the label "for the common good". On the other hand the right in the US has one simple and clear defining principle "Greed" – that's the only thing the Kochs, et al are all about and lower down on the right – the dupes – stupidly buy into the corallary "I'm for me first!"and think it will be to their benefit.
Davis X. Machina says:
Echoing Xynzee, yes the left does have too many issues,though they could be organized under the label "for the common good".
There is no 'common' any more to have a common good.
Atomistic individualism gets you immense progress in personal freedom, and bang, goes the solidarity and class-consciousness, or even the idea of citizenship of a shared state, you need for any economic progress.
The future promises me wide latitude in the gender(s) of persons with whom I live in grinding poverty, and an ever-greater availability and ever-wider choice of stimulants to numb the pain it causes.
But no slowing the inexorable slide into grinding poverty. That requires solidarity, and class-consciousness.
Patrick says:
"as more states like Michigan and Wisconsin are depopulated and the electorate becomes one dominated by old, white, rural dead-enders with nowhere to go, "
I disagree with this. I think the trend has been for these regions to be repopulated by immigrants; Marginalizing the waning local population electorally.
For example, the percentage of whites in Michigan declined from 88.3% in 1970 to 79.0% in 2010. Keep in mind, too, that the census has pretty poor tracking of Hispanics. Non-Hispanic whites is probably closer to 75%.
In the long run, the demographics of these states will become more liberal, and the trend is even accelerated by conservative politics that promote depopulation of white communities.
Death Panel Truck says:
Pretty sure Nixon was witless, charmless and ugly as fuck. But he went to college, unlike Walker.
Emerson Dameron says:
Nixon was a Thug's Thug. To crib from Jeb Lund's particularly mean Breitbart obit, he couldn't have used this new brand of Koch puppets for anything but Cambodian cannon fodder.
Major Kong says:
Heck, even my pilot's union is largely anti-union (except for ours of course).
Yes, the contradiction is not lost on me.
Skepticalist says:
When I was a kid in the 1950s, everybody around me bitched that because of unions the country was doomed. It was bullshit of course.
Today, my right-wing friends long for the economy of the fabulous fifties. This is the decade of 90% corporate taxes in some cases and very strong unions. They don't get it. Frankly, even if they got it they'd find a way to disbelieve the evidence. It would make perfect sense to them. The Republicans of today consider intellect and critical thinking character flaws.
I'm depressed. Unless something fairly catastrophic occurs I'll not be around to see what comes out of what I hope is a little drift towards sanity.
Deggjr says:
Oh, Walker went to college … after enrolling for eight semesters he was at least three semesters from graduating. He never made any further effort.
J. Dryden says:
I rather suspect that the Reaganite linking of Anti-Unionism to Racism will be its eventual undoing. The demographics of the country are changing FAST. We may not all live to see it, but we will not be a White Majority country in the foreseeable (albeit still distant) future.
When that happens, it may be that the current Powers That Be will give in on the Racism and co-opt the new base of no-longer-minorities.
But I doubt it. Because these fucks really ARE racist. Like really, really, really racist. And I just have this notion–or maybe it's a hope–that the Kochs of this new world would rather die than share it with The Brown. Which, when The Brown overwhelm them numerically, they will have to do.
DrS says:
@Emerson Dameron,
I've met a lot of pretty mysogynistic libertarians, and that was definitely an element of those Cool Contrarians, then and now.
Hilary gets them real riled up
Emerson Dameron says:
@DrS:
Sad but true. Hillary is everything these twerps think they despise.
I guess I've become a lot more sensitive to casual misogyny in the last few years, at least since I married a hardcore feminist. I guess that's healthy for me, but being very aware of the passive-aggressive rage and mental gymnastics of those guys does get pretty annoying.
The Bitterest Shrew says:
Regarding the decline of unions… Perhaps me experience is regional rather than universal, but a lot of people were driven away from unions here (Cleveland and Pittsburgh) because of the association with organized crime.
Someone had mentioned earlier that in the 80s anti-unionism was made appealing to racists. I would like to read more about this because it is fascinating. Unions themselves were so racist and sexist. Did it flip concurrently with republicans red-rovering racist dems?
DrS says:
I think we call those people Reagan Democrats. concurrently cause they're a lot of the same people.
Barry says:
The Bitterest Shrew Says:
"Regarding the decline of unions… Perhaps me experience is regional rather than universal, but a lot of people were driven away from unions here (Cleveland and Pittsburgh) because of the association with organized crime."
That's something used to hurt their reps, but did right-wing whites really care about that?
"Someone had mentioned earlier that in the 80s anti-unionism was made appealing to racists. I would like to read more about this because it is fascinating. Unions themselves were so racist and sexist. Did it flip concurrently with republicans red-rovering racist dems?"
Unions have been racist and sexist, but in a society which was racist and sexit.
Mike says:
They're not doing it themselves, they're going to the Russians to
do the same thing. What do you believe have been the obstacles to
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