How America Killed Its Middle Class

[Tom Joad]

A great article which exposes the stupidity of this "Trickle Down" economic theory of the right.

http://www.alternet.org/thom-hartman...s-middle-class

Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.

The only ways a working-class "middle class" can come about in a capitalist society are by massive social upheaval - a middle class emerged after the Black Plague in Europe in the 14th century - or by heavily taxing the rich.

French economist Thomas Piketty has talked about this at great length in his groundbreaking new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He argues that the middle class that came about in Western Europe and the United States during the mid-twentieth was the direct result of a peculiar set of historical events.

According to Piketty, the post-World War II middle class was created by two major things: the destruction of European inherited wealth during the war and higher taxes on the rich, most of which were rationalized by the war. This brought wealth and income at the top down, and raised working people up into a middle class.

Read the entire article here.

[Pio1980]

AFAIK, it was the Progressive era reforms that allowed a prosperous middle class to rise, and their reversal that is suppressing it back downward.

Despite what you might read in the Wall Street Journal or see on Fox News, capitalism is not an economic system that produces a middle class. In fact, if left to its own devices, capitalism tends towards vast levels of inequality and monopoly. The natural and most stable state of capitalism actually looks a lot like the Victorian England depicted in Charles Dickens' novels.

No chit, and the reversal of these reforms is taking us back to Dickensian 19th Century industrial feudalism with a vast cheap and defenseless labor pool. Kochtopia awaits us there.

[BlueStreak]

Tell that to the idiots I work with. We were told, yesterday, that our hours may be reduced to 36 soon. Management blamed coffee prices due to bad weather in Brazil. The good ol' boys in the maintenance department blame Obama, of course. I think they're both full of shit.

Productivity has increased. We now get the work done in less than 40 hours, so management is reducing labor costs. Which, of course, was the whole point of pushing us to bring productivity up.

But, that fact is something that management is never going to admit and too complex for the others to understand.

Dave

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

Tell that to the idiots I work with. We were told, yesterday, that our hours may be reduced to 36 soon. Management blamed coffee prices due to bad weather in Brazil. The good ol' boys in the maintenance department blame Obama, of course. I think they're both full of shit.

Productivity has increased. We now get the work done in less than 40 hours, so management is reducing labor costs. Which, of course, was the whole point of pushing us to bring productivity up.

But, that fact is something that management is never going to admit and too complex for the others to understand.

Dave

Is "The Swamp" a 'right-to-take-it-up-the-ass-from-an-employer-without-recourse-or-defense' state ?

[mpholland]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Is "The Swamp" a 'right-to-take-it-up-the-ass-from-an-employer-without-recourse-or-defense' state ?

Aren't all states?

[Pio1980]

Originally Posted by mpholland

Aren't all states?

They are getting there, all part of the Republican/Tea-publican-led march back to 19th Century Dickensian industrial feudalism.
Next stop, Kochtopia!

[whell]

An alternative view, less some of the hyperbole:

http://www.american.com/archive/2011...r/middle-class

[d-ray657]

Oh, yes. Let's look to the AEP for an objective viewpoint.

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Pio1980

Is "The Swamp" a 'right-to-take-it-up-the-ass-from-an-employer-without-recourse-or-defense' state ?

Virginia? Yes.

Dave

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by whell

An alternative view, less some of the hyperbole:

http://www.american.com/archive/2011...r/middle-class

You're joking, right? The American Enterprise Institute?