Working people are getting ass-whipped in this country, losing ground and falling backwards, and unless you happen to subscribe to the Nation or belong to a labor union, you probably don’t even know why or how this mugging has happened.
Productivity rises continuously, but American workers don’t share in the fruits of their production. No matter how much more efficiently we produce and deliver goods and services, our corporate masters parrot the same old line: in order to compete in the global economy we must slash wages and benefits and close plants, blah, blah, blah. Off the working class trots to the salt mines to diligently produce more for lower wages, with nary a complaint about vanishing benefits or government policies that fatten corporate coffers for exporting labor to low-wage countries. The Federal minimum wage hasn’t been adjusted upwards in eight or nine years; rarely a week passes without a news story about another profitable corporation running away from its pension obligations or dumping thousands of workers on the avenue.
“Trickle down” economics gained traction during Reagan’s presidency, and has loomed large ever since “Dutch” read his lines from cue cards. Make the investor and owner class prosperous, the tale goes, and every American will eventually share in that prosperity. Sure, and bet your money on the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series. Trickle down is a suspect idea with a lousy track record. How much extra dough is trickling down into your household? Thanks to corporate-friendly monetary, labor and trade policies, the investor and owner class hasn’t been this pampered in years. They’re running the world, calling the shots, buying Congress and the White House, profiting from war, trashing the planet, living high and large at our expense.
But what of the paradox of France, a nation -- albeit a much smaller nation than the US -- that made the decision long ago to erect a stable social support system, with short work weeks, boucoup vacation time, health benefits, and employment protections. By America’s savage, dominate-at-all-costs capitalist standards, France is a wreck, a decrepit “socialist” state that simply can’t deal in the world economy. Why then does France boast one of the more successful economies in the world? Somehow, the French take care of their people and hold their own in the international marketplace.
Savage capitalism as practiced on this fruited plain works beautifully for the privileged few. For the broad majority, savage capitalism means struggle, uncertainty, and hardship. I’m not arguing here for a cradle to grave welfare state; what I’m advocating is that we grind the sharp edges off the system and restore the balance of power between owners and workers, Business and government, the pursuit of profit, and the pursuit of justice.
And just in case anyone assumes I’m against individual responsibility let me say that I’m not. Individual responsibility and initiative would still be in play in a kindler, gentler capitalist America. The central problem is that the balance of power has shifted grotesquely in favor of corporate interests and the owner class, to the point where the game is rigged in their favor. All the individual responsibility and initiative in the world is for naught when one is playing the game at a rigged table.
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