2008: Year of Hope, Year of Fear. Essay 13
Why the odds are long for an economic and social turnaround
When I was 8, I was upset when our Japanese neighbors in Los Angeles were sent off to internment. In 1963, I traveled across the Deep South, awed by the totality of segregation and discrimination. So despite the Civil Rights revolution, you can understand that I was afraid that, in the secrecy of the absentee ballot, racism would prevail. The election of Barack Obama restored a degree of faith in the American experiment, and hope for an economic and social turnaround.
But my skepticism is strong. The Democratic party is one of the intellectual rich, not of the worker, and not very inclined to deep change. What are the real problems of American society? By far the greatest, and probably not even on the agenda, is the astounding degree of economic inequality, perhaps back to the levels of 1929 or even 1913. Not unrelated to this is deindustrialization and overdependence on other nations for resources, products, and credit. The story of the rise of the United States to world power was based on production. Our success over Germany and Japan depended on massive production and our capacity (yes, from the likes of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler) to destroy the productive capacity of the enemy. Now we are willing to bail out the bloated financial and service sectors, and let industry die.
Similarly, while the United States may have the “finest” education at the top, the general level of education is amazingly mediocre, with an astounding prevalence of ignorance and superstition. I do not see even a hint of a turnaround here. I suspect the power of the medical insurance and hospital sectors are sufficient to prevent serious reform of this dysfunctional system. Nor are we close to abandonment of the hopeless war on drugs, or to real reform of criminal justice, or — despite the election of Obama — to integration of millions of Black males into mainstream society. Do the ivory tower economic theorists, Democratic as well as Republican, have a clue about the disaster potential of 100,000 more unemployed workers in Detroit?
The beginnings of this economic and social restructuring were around 1976; believe it or not, the lowest level of economic inequality in US history was 1974. Those of us at the top surely believe we earned our way there, but are in denial about the immense cost to the majority left behind.
I just hope I’m as wrong about prospects for reform as I was about the election!
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Comments:
Posted Wed, Jan 7, 4:14 a.m. inappropriate
I couldn't agree more. Go to Europe then come back here and it's amazing how so many things you normally don't notice hit you in the face, from the wastefulness of suburbia, the ugliness of so much of what passes for housing and architecture, the lack of investment in real, productive things, even the appearance of so many people who look like mountains of congested flesh. "Colossally overweight, diabetic TV zombies," in the words of James Kunstler.
I too hope you're wrong but I fear you are right.
Of course, the sight of the North Cascades below as one nears Seattle, should it happen to be clear, so utterly unlike anything in Europe, does make up for much of it, so it ain't all bad...but so much of it could be so much better....
Posted Thu, Jan 8, 10:56 a.m. inappropriate
Dick,
The election should have taught you something: There are changes in America since the 1960's. It really did happen: A black man named Barack Hussein Obama was elected, despite the classic hysterical attacks using racism, xenophobia, and ever-escalating charges of first, "liberalism", "socialism", "Marxism" and eventually even "communism" and "fascism".
Feeling woefully pessimistic doesn't help bring about change: In fact, it makes it more likely the "bad guys" will win and things won't change.
The only way that things get better is to first believe that they can and will get better if you do the work, make the effort, and actually try. No successful business ever started with a half-hearted effort. No star of stage or screen ever began their career by thinking, "This probably won't work." No one in the NBA ever though, "I'm really not good at this and so I can't succeed." And no improvements were ever made by any elected official, anywhere who didn't believe that better things were possible.
So realize, please, that when you say, "I can't believe that things will get better because of the following data, history and socio-economic analysis, you're actually making it less likely.
Remember, if right-wingers can't convert you, the next thing they'll try to do is discourage you. ("It'll never work! It's not realistic" yadda yadda yadda)
Don't buy it. And don't use "intellectualism" as an excuse for laziness or cynicism. It's time to go to work! Anything is possible.