Paul Craig Roberts: The New Face of Class War

[carincross]

Paul Craig Roberts takes another look at the economy after new figures are released. Wonder why you can't get a better job? Wonder why you feel so poor even though the administration says the economy is "wonderful". Read this article.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09302006.html


The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor… "Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap. In testimony before the U.S.-China Commission, I explained that offshoring is the replacement of U.S. labor with foreign labor in U.S. production functions over a wide range of tradable goods and services… Establishment economists are beginning to see the light.

[whistle]

1. The article's conclusion is right on the money...

..."The United States is the first country in history to destroy the prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.

"America is seeing a widening polarization into rich and poor. The resulting political instability and social strife will be terrible."

[Raster]

5. This is what happens when corporations practicing carnivore capitalism

own politicians and control governments. The actions taken are NEVER in the best interests of the citizens, but ALWAYS in the best interests of the corporations and their corpocrats servants. Eat the rich, before they have you for lunch.

[fasttense]

2. Excess wealth in the hands of a few is dangerous to the state.

The neocons have proven it.

[necso]

3. Secretary Roberts makes an important point:

A nation's technology and capital (both taken broadly) are important parts of its world-market advantage (disadvantage). And when technology and capital become dissociated from the national roots that have fostered them (often at great cost), this is a basic change in the nature of the game, and it can result in great changes to the relative advantage of nations (and of the poor souls caught up in the follies of these, their, nations).

And when capital and technology flow freely, then a nation's advantage is reduced to things that cannot flow (or that flow with relative difficulty) such as: minerals; land more advantageous for farming (or whatever); lower living-standards; a police state to maintain order (an advantage at least in that it's more reassuring to speculators); indifference to pollution; indifference to safety standards; lack of concern for the exploitation of citizens; lack of individual "rights"; cheap human life; etc.

Now, "economists" will talk ad nauseum about currency valuations as the way to deal with this problem (a gross oversimplification), but there's another way of looking at it: A worker in one country cannot evenly compete with a (comparable) worker in another country, if the latter worker has a larger or (materially) poorer (or especially both) mass of (potential) workers beneath/around him (ie, where labor costs to this worker (eg, services), direct and indirect, will be relatively cheaper -- and where he will have more competitors for his job that would settle for less; and where non-flowing advantage doesn't outweigh this gap -- which in a global era, it'll do less and less).

As a nation we're "playing" against competitors (enemies) who are crafty, clear-thinking and farsighted; while we insist (in large part) at looking at our problems from such narrow, short-sighted, overly-simplified, ideologically-hidebound, self-centric viewpoints that we effectively become willfully blind, ignorant and stupid.

...

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that economic libertarianism is incompatible with social libertarianism, as the elite class that economic libertarianism promotes will strive for social controls (controversies) in order to protect their interests, divide (distract) their potential opponents, etc -- and since they don't need the economic opportunities closed off by social restrictionism (besides, their hands are deep into the more-profitable illegal-versions of these "forbidden" acts -- and no "dinosaur" wishes for the emergence of tough, flexible, better-adapted, uncoopted competitors).

[teryang]

4. This is one of PCRs best articles

And that is saying a lot.

[troubleinwinter]

6. Welcome to the poor-house.

US businesses ranked by employee size:

TOP SIX EMPLOYERS
1. Manpower, Inc--2,027,100
2. Wal-Mart--1,700,000
3. Printing and Communications Media, Inc.--757,149
4. Kelly Services, Inc.--708,400
5. Labor Ready, Inc.--602,900
6. McDonald's Corp.--438,000

Dun & Bradstreet Business Rankings, 2006.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2199334&mesg_id=2199334

Temporary jobs, part-time jobs, low wage jobs, no-benefit jobs, short-term jobs. No health care, no pensions, no ability to support one's self, let alone a family or own a home or save.

"Printing and Communications Media, Inc." does not produce anything on Google.

[indepat]

7. When the engine that drives the American economy goes into a downward

never-ending spiral, what will follow?

[BeHereNow]

8. Fucking chaos, that's what.

Given that the street gangs out number
and have more weaponry than law enforcement,
I am seriously considering buying a gun.
I don't have much, but I don't intend to
give it up easily and I don't expect protection
from our so called government.

BHN

[BeHereNow]

9. Damn, that is one depressing read.

Lord, we are so fucked.
More so, our poor kids are fucked.
I'm really glad my daughter doesn't want
to have children. I think she will have a hard
enough time surviving with out them.
God help those who do.
BHN

Have I mentioned how much I hate the bastards,
congress and senate included, who have destroyed
this country?