Bernie still would be a more attractive candidate.
Bernie is just an amazing candidate. Biden would have looked pale compared to Bernie.
The problem is that our economy, even without the 2008 recession, has changed fundamentally for working people.
The relationship between working people and their bosses and workplaces is less secure, far riskier than in any time that I can remember.
Computerization of the workplace means that people, labor is far more fungible than it used to be.
I've done a lot of different kinds of jobs in my life. When I was in college, one of my jobs was in a book store. I kept track of the inventory of books (college bookstores have a lot of inventory changes) in a large notebook with many columns. My knowledge of the names of the authors and titles of the textbooks made me more efficient and insured that I had job security even though my pay was low and my job not all that important. Today, that job would be done by a computer, and the knowledge of the person inputting the information, that individual's specific and learned, memorized knowledge of the titles and authors is of very little if any value.
Thus, the person who enters the information into the computer can be replaced or exchanged and the boss may not even notice that a new person is doing the job.
That makes a huge difference in terms of job security, in terms of meaning and gratification and dignity in the workplace. And it means that our economy has to change and our society has to change.
Bernie is suggesting that some of that job security that we have lost be supplemented by government programs. Sounds good to me. No one else is even acknowledging the problem. And I don't even think that Bernie is aware that is proposals respond to that problem in the relationship between workers (and not just laborers or factory workers but all working people) and their jobs and workplaces.
Bernie is simply the candidate of this time.
That's the way I see it. If Biden had ideas that responded to this change in our society and in our relationships with work, then he would have already presented them. Obama would have presented them. But they haven't. They aren't thinking in this way because as Obama pointed out in his State of the Union speech, this specific problem is not on the radar of members of Congress or people in the beltway because they are still living and working in the old paradigm. They keep their jobs longer than ordinary, average Americans.
And that is an odd fact. Because the fact of elections should mean that members of Congress, for example, enjoy LESS job security than most Americans. It's kind of written into the Constitution. But the fact is that today so many jobs are so insecure that facing elections every two to six years is relative job security.
I have a friend who works here for a couple of days and then there for a couple of days. That is no longer all that unusual. He is highly skilled in his field.
Farmers still can work on their farms all their lives. But even teachers face the threat of lay-offs and firings. The working world is very, very insecure. Bernie's ideas are tuned into that new reality. The ideas of universal health insurance as a right and free college tuition at state schools to name two examples, respond to the insecurity of Americans today.
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