Class is not Dismissed

 

I had been thinking about writing more on the subject of class. The Times has saved me the trouble of documenting what I have to say. The basic facts are in "Class Matters." What remains are the conclusions one might draw, and what to do about it.

One thing not to do about it is what Business Week suggests in its latest issue (6/13/2005): trim back pension benefits. BW's cover story suggests civil service employees are getting a great ride on the backs of the public. BW's charts show that public employees are getting more and better wages and benefits than most private employees. What BW doesn't show is that, once upon a time, the situation was reversed. In fact, most private employees used to get much better wages and benefits than they get now. What has happened to airline employees is a drastic example of the sort of crisis private employees are undergoing everywhere in the United States. Public employees haven't gained much, and they haven't lost much. Thus, in comparison they look better off than private employees; but that is not the story conservatives want told.

I believe there is a reason BW doesn't make that historical comparison. Once upon a time, BW used to take a more moderate, "business Republican," point of view. No more: a few months ago they hired their new Editor from the Wall St Journal stable. Since then, Faux "fair and balanced" journalism has supplanted the old formula with amazing speed. Liberals are a nearly extinct species at BW. The tone of Letters to the Editor has changed markedly. Since I don't need a weekly rerun of WSJ (which I read despite the stench), I don't plan on renewing my BW subscription. What is happening with BW and me is another indication of the rapidly evolving class and caste differences in the United States.

The BW story is also indicative of the ongoing, positive feedback strategy invented by Reaganites: "Starve the Beast." The idea is to reduce taxes, especially for the conservative's rich friends and relatives. That reduction causes a shortfall in government income, which makes it difficult to fund social and other programs hated by conservatives. That justifies chop, cut, trim and pare in the appropriations process, so the unwanted stuff eventually disappears. When programs refuse to go away, taxes are shifted onto those least able to pay them, thus further penalizing the detested working class. Complaints about deficiencies in government services are squashed and ignored. Complaints about high taxes or misuse of funds then justify further tax cuts passed to the elite classes, completing the loop. The biggest effect of all this is solving the Servant Problem, which is probably what it was all about in the first place.

In "Starve the Beast," conservatives have a neat circular argument that seemingly justifies their position out of thin air. It does infuriate me that they've gotten away with it all these years, because even a little thinking should expose where they're headed. A little more thinking should force to the surface an underlying assumption, that government is bad. That isn't very hard to find out, even without thought, since conservatives advertise that idea during election campaigns. "Bad government" is further assisted by envy and resentment, which articles like that in BW aim to provoke and direct against the working class. When the propaganda is really effective, it gets the working class fighting against itself; in the melee forgetting who created the situation. ('Let's you and him fight.')

In "Class Matters," the well known statistic is mentionned, that after-tax income increased 139% since 1980 among millionaire households - top 0.1% of all households. At least 10% of that increase happened in just the last 4 years. In comparison, the lowest 20% of household incomes (those now taking in under $25,000) received about 9% more since 1980. All of that net 9% increase and some more came during Clinton's second term, as the real income of low income households had actually declined over 10% between 1980 and 1996. The lowest 20% of household incomes fell after the Bandit's election, and continues its steady downward trend. All that is clearly the desired result of conservative policies. Reducing the lowest class to serfdom solves the Servant Problem. To paraphrase an old Russian saying: 'A man is not a Pig; he'll swallow anything.'

It should be obvious where I'm headed: the reason we have a problem paying worker pensions and benefits is the money has been withdrawn from those programs. Those withdrawals have been handed out to the worthy rich and wealthy among us. It is not only taxes that reverted to elite bank accounts. CEO pay, for example, has increased from somewhere around 10-20 times average worker pay in 1980 to 400-600 (or more) times that pay today. Shareholders in public corporations are being fleeced to pay a tiny managerial elite, whether they earn it or not. This is important, because many of the shareholders are public and private pension funds which hold corporate stock and bonds.

The robbery of the poor and middle class - the bottom half of society - has been proceeding apace in the private world as well as the public one, in every conceivable way. Wages are being held down. Benefits are being reduced. Defined benefit plans are nearly all gone, having been replaced by defined contribution plans (401k, IRA etc). Health insurance coverage is declining, and in many cases being dropped altogether. The common theme of all these changes is "you're on your own," which is, for the most part, the way it was before the New Deal. (The New Deal wasn't just about Social Security. It was also about unemployment benefits, widows and orphans benefits, disability insurance, workmen's compensation, medical care, assistance for poor children, and on and on.) Since 1980, all of those programs have been reduced and limited, so the proportion and the number of people in poverty just keeps on rising. A 9% rise in the average income of the poorest 20% means that almost all of that rise went to the "wealthy" poor - those above the poverty line.

The authors of "Class Matters" point out that workers in most European countries are actually better off than American workers. This again points out the power of propaganda, as most Americans are convinced they are better off than everyone else in this world. This is one rationale for accepting whatever they get. What would happen if people found out, and believed, the truth?

By most measures, the United States is increasing the gap between the rich and poor every year. Far from being the sort of Middle Class society envisioned in the New Deal, the United States is separated into ghettoes and gated communities. Our neighborhoods and schools are still largely segregated, although somewhat less by race and ethnic group, and more by income and wealth. As described in "Class Matters," opportunity is class dependent. The children of upper income groups get most of the advantages. There are poor people who get ahead, but they are a lucky few. Going along with class segregation is rigid social stratification; i.e., a lack of social mobility. This is slowly but surely developing into a caste system, based on guilds, since parents are able to introduce their children into their work environments as successors, and overcome the usual obstacles presented to apprentices. This phenomenon is already publicly visible in Washington and Hollywood, where elders are introducing and promoting their children. The most elite 1000 families not only have a lock on wealth, but also on social, economic and political position.

It has been apparent to me for a long time - nearly two decades - that the United States was becoming a Third World country. With the rise of religious fundamentalism, it is just about there. The resolution of Middle Eastern problems is what I feared: them is us. The United States looks more and more like Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, not France or Sweden. In short, the United States is reverting to Europe's pre-Renaissance, Medieval roots. Geoffrey Chaucer would feel at home, but I feel Tom Paine and Benjamin Franklin would not.