The Middle Class Game Is Up: We're Heading to a Slave Labor Planet

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



JoeBageant.com / By Joe Bageant

The Middle Class Game Is Up: We're Heading to a Slave Labor Planet
Thanks to globalization, the American, Australian and European promises of middle-class prosperity are on their way to extinction.

April 22, 2010 |


Class solidarity was such a good idea. It really was. Obviously, most of the people who need solidarity are in the world's laboring classes. After all, the rich have more than enough solidarity already, as was recently demonstrated by their successful execution of the greatest global financial heist in history. Oh sure, we'll see some state sponsored mock show trials of a few of them -- they always throw a few of their own out of the sleigh to the wolves during their escapes. The big heist was big news. Working Americans will be applying Preparation H to their keisters for a long time to come.

But the ultimate accomplishment of the already rich, the newly rich and the corporate rich, has been their global solidarity on the corporate/financial front. It's been a long run up to globalism, but the rich have great patience. As an American, all my life I've heard their chief mouthpiece, the president of the United States, beginning with Eisenhower, right on up through Kennedy, Reagan, Ford, Carter and Bush, and now Obama, sing the same song. Which goes moreover like this:

"Trade is the road to peace. Commerce and business know no national boundaries. They link nations together on productivity, creating jobs and peace across the world."

It sounded good at the time. Who would have thought that the people enjoying all this harmony and peace brought about through globalization would be enjoying it in a one big happy planetary work gulag? And if they are not doing so at the moment, they will be as soon global capitalism, under the watchful solidarity of the rich, bears full fruit. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/146569/the_middle_class_game_is_up%3A_we%27re_heading_to_a_slave_labor_planet

[ixion]

1. Indeed...

and it's something the top 1% have been planning/implementing just after it began in WWII. I'm sure they've always viewed the middle class with disdain, and probably considered it "collateral damage" for taking out Hilter, et. al.

[nebenaube]

3. You mean right after the civil war right?

I mean the plan failed in 1916, 1932, 1945...

[ixion]

5. well, I guess arguably all the way back to the Revolutionary War

in that context.

The emergence of the middle-class as we know it didn't really take root until after WWII, although there were some "green shoots" in decades prior.

But, yeah, I think there's a valid argument saying that the top 1% have been playing this since the days of the American Colonies.

[rhett o rick]

2. I agree that we are in a cycle toward capitalistic tyranny, but there will be a huge problem

Capitalism is not self sustainable. Currently the big greed capitalists are fleecing the middle class because we have huge resources. And there is nothing to stop them from enslaving us, even if they somehow wanted to. It's just the progression of capitalism. Nothing personal. However, at some point the capitalist will look to each other for feed. After the big fish eat all the little fish they start eating each other.

While it may look like globalization may united the peoples of the world, it can not overcome the nationalism of the different races, ethnic groups and religions.

I see chaos.

NGU

[fasttense]

4. The media personalities have been bribed by the uber rich

to hide the truth and present the fiction the uber wealthy have concocted.

Would you give up a $20,000 a year job if you were told to lie, cheat and steal? Many people would. You can always find another $20,000 a year job. But would you give up a $3 million a year job if you were told to lie cheat and steal? Hell No.

[flyarm]

6. " who would have thought"??? many many of us!! eom

[midnight]

7. Chamber of Commerce in Wisconsin was credited with destroying education

in Wisconsin. Former Chancellor of the University Wisconsin system John Whiley said the organization would pressure him to have his teaching staff support the organizations causes, and he resigned in 2008, saying that this organization was destroying education in Wisconsin.