'Free Markets' Will Be The End of The Middle Class; How Do Adv. Societies Keep A Viable Middle Class
-'Free Markets' Will Be The End Of The Middle Class,' Marshall Auerback, Truthdig, Nov. 5, 2019. EXCERPTS:
National industrial policy was once something you might read about in todays equivalent of a friends Facebook post, as hard as that might sound to believe. It was in newspapers; it was on the radio. Taxi drivers had opinions about it. That all changed in the last 35 years, when the rise and fall of the stock market and a shallow conversation about unemployment rates took over. Industrial policy became an inside-baseball conversation, and to the extent that it was discussed, it was through the prism of whether it imperiled the golden gospel and great economic distraction of our time, the free market.
The decades of free-market propaganda weve been exposed to are basically an exercise in distracting the public from the meaningful choices that are now made behind closed doors. The two big political parties that outwardly represent symbolic issues like gun rights and school prayer spend the bulk of their time and political energy on complex industrial and regulatory questions.
But much like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, theyd better start considering the question of a national industrial policy before theres no industry left to manage. Manufacturing is now at its smallest share of the U.S. economy in 72 years, reports Bloomberg. Multinational supply chains undermine the negotiating power of workers, thereby exacerbating inequality.
Are there ways to bring back manufacturing, or should we just capitulate to a mindset that argues that these jobs are gone for good, that software retention is good enough, even as we shift whats left of our manufacturing sector overseas to sweatshop economies? That seems short-sighted. After all, its pretty easy to steal IP; its not so easy to steal an auto manufacturing facility. The real question is: In the absence of some sort of national industrial strategy, how do Western societies retain a viable middle class?
..Robert Kuttner, writing at the Huffington Post at the inception of Barack Obamas presidency, made a compelling argument that many of Americas great industrial enterprises did not simply spring up spontaneously via the magic of the free market: American commercial leadership in aerospace is no naturally occurring phenomenon. It reflects trillions of dollars of subsidy from the Pentagon and from NASA. Likewise, U.S. dominance in pharmaceuticals is the result of government subsidy of basic research, favorable patent treatment, and the fact that the American consumer of prescription drugs is made to overpay, giving the industry exorbitant profits to plow back into research. Throwing $700 billion at Americas wounded banks is also an industrial policy.
So if we can have implicit industrial policies for these industries, why not explicit policies to rebuild our auto industry, our steel industry, our machine tool industry, and the industries of the next century, such as green energy and high-speed rail? And why not devise some clear standards for which industries deserve help, and why, and what they owe America in return?...
More, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/free-markets-will-be-the-end-of-the-middle-class/
- Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class, Decline For 4 Decades; Pew Research Ctr, Review, NPR, Dec. 9, *2015,
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016244277
at140
(6,110 posts)except make the checks BIGGER!
send every family $5000 + $1000 x No of people in family = $10,000 maximum
Poverty will be reduced sharply and even minimum wage workers can live like middle class.
appalachiablue
(41,146 posts)OldBaldy1701E
(5,134 posts)Stop worshiping a little green piece of paper. Advanced societies do not honor capitalism. Advanced societies put humans first. Since we seem completely incapable of doing this, asking that question is pointless. You can clean, paint, and spruce up a house all you want, but when the foundations and the frame is rotten, all you are getting is a fancy looking piece of shiat. And, since the country seems perfectly happy with the homeless in the street and the hopeless hanging from closets while sub-human animals create unrest just to enrich themselves, I don't hold a lot of hope for anything to change anytime soon. Sad, but reality doesn't care about a person's fee-fees.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)They keep being pushed on us by the rich...
...who want every last dime from everyone.