Heading into the November presidential election, one of the biggest issues on voters' minds is the economy. According to a new poll, 73% of Americans say strengthening it is their top concern.
Right, I know. This is a fundamental disagreement in how we see “the right economy” and the right type of structure for a country.
Honestly, I don’t even really have a problem with what you’re saying here. I think the answer to the problem you’re describing is strong unions to be able to claw back the fruits of all those gains in productivity for the working class, pretty much by force, and then a democratic-enough government in place that it won’t squash or undo that whole effort on behalf of capital. That’s very different from anything we currently have.
I think that the US economy as it existed for white people between about 1940-1970 was a very clear example of how things can work well, and if we could deploy that, extended to all races instead of just the whites, and replacing oppression of the third world on a massive scale with technological improvements, I think that would be good.
One thing incredibly notable to me about that FDR economy that I like, is that it didn’t come from some political class coming down from above and saying “here you go we fixed it” – it only was able to happen because people banded together into unions and fought multiple generations’ worth of literal bloody battle to demand the type of economy they deserved, and then after the fact the politicians took credit for having “given” it all to them. But whatever.
I don’t really expect you to agree with me on that, but I don’t have the type of intense disagreement with you if you’re saying that Biden isn’t putting us on track for real communism which is what’s required. My real intense disagreements are reserved for other people who are pretending that Biden is doing a Clinton-style neoliberal betrayal of even my preferred within-the-capitalistic-model progress, and so even people who want that FDR economy should vote against him.
I could get on board with some militant union organizing and class solidarity. But that’s about as likely to be successful under our current government as a class revolution: police are armed to the gills and even a union-friendly administration isn’t going to tolerate the kind of union action that we’d need to make a noticeable dent in our economic organization. Even a pretty light rail strike was quickly intervened on (I’m aware of the concessions won with the administrations assistance after the fact, you don’t need to elaborate on it for me). The reason why that example isn’t a good sign is that the kind of damage a strike like that threatens is kind of fundamental to all potential strikes in the future… That a union strike like that with real leverage couldn’t even be tolerated for a moment is… well it’s not encouraging. Can you imagine something like an energy strike, or a roadworker strike in the form and style of the Pullman or Homestead Steel? An entire city’s industry shut down by armed union workers? God forbid a general strike…
Idk. And I also really doubt that a new-deal economy would work today… Capital just isn’t as reliant on labor as it used to be. It’s my ardent belief that we’re already way overproducing ‘goods’ (I like the marxist term ‘treats’ to describe most of what we produce now); how would unions help reverse that kind of overproduction and over-consumption? How do unions dissolve the kind of wealth that’s accumulated around old-money industry and redirect it? The free market has distorted the capital landscape so much that the kind of action we need isn’t achievable without an external pressure… Unions work well to redistribute resources between industry and labor but aren’t able to pump the breaks or redirect it elsewhere.
I think our economic options are just… really really bleak. And it’s happening as we’re entering into another cold-war style conflict with China… Yea. I’m of the opinion that things will get way, way worse before they get noticeably better.
You might be right. It used to be that without people to grow the food, anyone involved with capital would starve. Kind of sets a baseline underneath how small labor’s power is ever able to shrink to.
Now automation has gone, not quite, but almost far enough that it’s the exact opposite – capital can simply say “lol okey dokey then, good luck” and stop cutting labor in on any of the products of automated factory farming.
Brings it back to the question, though, of what is the solution then?
Right, I know. This is a fundamental disagreement in how we see “the right economy” and the right type of structure for a country.
Honestly, I don’t even really have a problem with what you’re saying here. I think the answer to the problem you’re describing is strong unions to be able to claw back the fruits of all those gains in productivity for the working class, pretty much by force, and then a democratic-enough government in place that it won’t squash or undo that whole effort on behalf of capital. That’s very different from anything we currently have.
I think that the US economy as it existed for white people between about 1940-1970 was a very clear example of how things can work well, and if we could deploy that, extended to all races instead of just the whites, and replacing oppression of the third world on a massive scale with technological improvements, I think that would be good.
One thing incredibly notable to me about that FDR economy that I like, is that it didn’t come from some political class coming down from above and saying “here you go we fixed it” – it only was able to happen because people banded together into unions and fought multiple generations’ worth of literal bloody battle to demand the type of economy they deserved, and then after the fact the politicians took credit for having “given” it all to them. But whatever.
I don’t really expect you to agree with me on that, but I don’t have the type of intense disagreement with you if you’re saying that Biden isn’t putting us on track for real communism which is what’s required. My real intense disagreements are reserved for other people who are pretending that Biden is doing a Clinton-style neoliberal betrayal of even my preferred within-the-capitalistic-model progress, and so even people who want that FDR economy should vote against him.
I could get on board with some militant union organizing and class solidarity. But that’s about as likely to be successful under our current government as a class revolution: police are armed to the gills and even a union-friendly administration isn’t going to tolerate the kind of union action that we’d need to make a noticeable dent in our economic organization. Even a pretty light rail strike was quickly intervened on (I’m aware of the concessions won with the administrations assistance after the fact, you don’t need to elaborate on it for me). The reason why that example isn’t a good sign is that the kind of damage a strike like that threatens is kind of fundamental to all potential strikes in the future… That a union strike like that with real leverage couldn’t even be tolerated for a moment is… well it’s not encouraging. Can you imagine something like an energy strike, or a roadworker strike in the form and style of the Pullman or Homestead Steel? An entire city’s industry shut down by armed union workers? God forbid a general strike…
Idk. And I also really doubt that a new-deal economy would work today… Capital just isn’t as reliant on labor as it used to be. It’s my ardent belief that we’re already way overproducing ‘goods’ (I like the marxist term ‘treats’ to describe most of what we produce now); how would unions help reverse that kind of overproduction and over-consumption? How do unions dissolve the kind of wealth that’s accumulated around old-money industry and redirect it? The free market has distorted the capital landscape so much that the kind of action we need isn’t achievable without an external pressure… Unions work well to redistribute resources between industry and labor but aren’t able to pump the breaks or redirect it elsewhere.
I think our economic options are just… really really bleak. And it’s happening as we’re entering into another cold-war style conflict with China… Yea. I’m of the opinion that things will get way, way worse before they get noticeably better.
You might be right. It used to be that without people to grow the food, anyone involved with capital would starve. Kind of sets a baseline underneath how small labor’s power is ever able to shrink to.
Now automation has gone, not quite, but almost far enough that it’s the exact opposite – capital can simply say “lol okey dokey then, good luck” and stop cutting labor in on any of the products of automated factory farming.
Brings it back to the question, though, of what is the solution then?