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

[kpete]

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 |
By Joe Bageant


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.

Thanks to globalization, the American, Australian and European working classes are on their way to extinction, in terms of their traditional rights, and quality of life. Just like the workers being poisoned to death by circuit board toxins in Guiyu, China, their fates will be determined by global capital, either by default or by bitter struggle against it. We are not seeing much of the latter and are not likely to, until it is too late, which it may already be. After all, you cannot put up much of a struggle against global capital when you worship it a creed and are addicted to commodities too.

more:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/146569/the_middle_class_game_is_up%3A_we%27re_heading_to_a_slave_labor_planet

[RandomThoughts]

1. Sometimes people think having money is bad.

Having money is just one other thing a person might or might not have.

It is when people put having money above things like justice and better ways of treating people that the problems start. I myself would like to have money, but I don't in part because I would not do the things money requiers to have it. But it is possible to have modest incomes without selling your values, and some of the rich could have got there without themselves selling what they believe is best. But the thing is, it is hard to justify large disparities of wealth when it is gained by adding sufffering. And much of the moving of money to the top does that.

I also knew many in middle management that had modest incomes, or even above modest, that stood up for what is right even if some decree from there boss said to disadvantage someone for money. I know a few that were fired also.

[Newest Reality]

2. Joe has had his finger

on the pulse of the dying corpse for a long time now. He is the old wise fart you should listen to even though you don't want to hear what he has to say.

The ignorance and denial pave the road to a cruel fate:
"But for Americans, it does not go down at all. As a people, they'll never ever accept that fact, because they'll never know it for at least two reasons. (1) They are too over worked and undereducated to find out for themselves, and (2) American corporate media machinery will never let them hear of it. Americans are screwed, blued and tattooed."

[havocmom]

4. Yep

[femrap]

34. k and r

Joe knows his shit....and keisters

Cooper doesn't seem sincere to me at all....he seems to be acting.

And isn't his mother rich? Gave her name to some blue jeans?

Cooper knows nothing of real work. He does know how to bat his eyes though.

[Hannah Bell]

47. his mom is a vanderbilt heiress ($4 million+). plus she made more money with her ugly, early-times

"name-brand/designer" jeans.

i could never figure out why those ugly jeans were popular.

his great-aunt morgan/furness was the mistress of the duke of windsor, wife of an att heir, & eventually a viscountess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Furness,_Viscountess_Furness

another great-aunt married US Tobacco/US Steel/standard oil baron harry payne whitney:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Payne_Whitney

the rest were all astronomically wealthy as well.

this is great-grandpa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt_II

here's the family manse built by great-grandpa:










grandpa inherited $10 million when he came of age, but liked to gamble:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,721070,00.html


everyone for six generations = filthy rich




another one of the vanderbilt family's US mansions:



"Interestingly, it was Edith Vanderbilt Cecil's grandmother, Cornelia Vanderbilt, who first introduced Edwina Ashley to Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India. Her constant nurturing led to the marriage between Edwina and Lord Mountbatten. Ironically, Sir John Francis Amherst Cecil, Edith's grandfather, was the British Crown's favorite to be named the Viceroy of India, but he decided to marry Cornelia Vanderbilt and move to Biltmore House in Ashville, North Carolina. In turn, Sir John Cecil nominated his good friend Lord Mountbatten to be the Viceroy of India."


http://www.outofindia.net/abroad/EVC/cecil_lineage.htm



honestly, is there any reason anderson cooper deserves to be the face of the nightly news more than the guy he got booted -- except that he's *connected*?

is there any reason gloria vanderbilt's ugly-ass jeans deserved to be mass-marketed more than any aspiring design student's version?

trace the vanderbilt connections & you find half the important families of the us ruling class.

[femrap]

57. Thanks for

all the great info.

You know those mansions are simply hideous....just too much. They are at the opposite extreme of our deteriorating inner-city houses which are also hideous.

I never watch him...nor CNN for that matter. Maddow is about all I watch on TV.

I'm thinking of getting a Satellite Dish so I can watch 'Democracy, Now!' on the Free Speech network and there is Link TV as well.

[RadiationTherapy]

3. Amazing article. Incisive and insightful.

[pampango]

5. It didn't just start with Eisenhower. FDR and Truman set up GATT (now the WTO) to promote trade.

They thought that the republican Smoot/Hawley/Hoover tariffs in the US and their equivalents in other countries hurt efforts at economic recovery and contributed to the rise of nationalism in the 1930's. They believed that trade would help Europe and Asia rebuild after the war and would make countries more economically interdependent and less likely to go to war with each other. Indeed that is what has happened.

Today, the progressive countries like Canada, the EU, Australia trade much more than the US does, yet many blame all of our problems on trade. The big difference really is that the progressive countries spread the costs and benefits of trade fairly throughout their societies through progressive taxation, strong social safety nets, national health care systems, strong unions, effective market and effective financial industry regulation. Trade is a much smaller part of our economy than it is in Canada, Europe or Australia, so if trade was an evil thing, our citizens should be much better off than Canadians and Europeans.

[anigbrowl]

6. +1 for sanity

Bageant is full of it. Think he's right? OK, then you should favor tariffs on interstate commerce and hate the commerce clause of the constitution.

[Romulox]

13. Let's bring RB McTexas and the Pron guy in on this! nt

[Romulox]

12. The US has been involved in a virtually unbroken chain of wars since WWII; your theory is falsified.

Most of these wars have been fought in defense of the mythical "free markets" over which you wax theologically.

[pampango]

14. You're right, the US has. Of course, Korea and Vietnam were mainly about anti-communism.

The world, as a whole though, has been much more peaceful than it was during the first half of the twentieth century. I think FDR and Truman have been proven to have been right.

[Romulox]

15. In other words, to secure those mythical "free" markets. nt

[pampango]

18. If you wish. Europe has been peaceful for 65 years with "free" markets (and trade), first

in Western Europe and now throughout. Something they didn't accomplish when they had high tariffs and immigration restrictions against each other. We've avoided a WW III. Something that the post-WW I generation was not able to accomplish. I think FDR and Truman knew what they were doing.

I would say that South Koreans are better off today than they would be under the rule of Kim II. You're right that securing a "free" market there probably has something to do with it. Ironically the Vietnam War probably delayed Vietnam's entry into the "free" market system. They are starting to do that now using a "capitalism under communist party rule" system like in China.

[Jackpine Radical]

29. The notion that those Asian wars were about Communism is naive.

Korea was about containing the Chinese and blocking them from Pacific markets, just as we had done with the Japanese a few years earlier. Vietnam was about a bunch of things like minerals, rubber plantations and offshore oil in the South China Sea. I had my eyes opened one day while sitting in a club in Cam Ranh Bay drinking with some civilian oil geologists just in from an exploration vessel who were just drunk enough to talk about why they were there and what they were finding.

[dotymed]

50. To me

the real issue is social justice. FDR, made many horrific decisions (internment camps), but when he was overseeing the rebuilding of ravaged countries after WWII, he was brilliant.
He made sure that Europe and Japan included universal health care in their constitutions. Also, he ensured that these countries had strong social safety nets. He tried to accomplish those same goals in America. He wrote a second Bill of Rights that would have guaranteed that Americans had the same rights as the Countries that were rebuilt after WWII. Of course America's elite would have no part of his "Socialism." While he was able to get passed many regulatory provisions against "big business" that were essential to the creation of our middle class, future generations of elite capitalists had those provisions repealed. Along came ronnie raygun and our path to Feudalism was set.

[whattheidonot]

17. politics of it.

This is true. it is the political control of it. And the managing of the economy by government. Our government has caved into the corporate power and there has been little common good come out of this. It is now close to the point of turning because so many people have been affected by it. Local and state governments over did it as well leaving little money for local government. This why the moderates are in trouble. A moderate solution will not work. Fundamental change is needed.

[Bonhomme Richard]

7. Is it time for a worldwide minimum wage?

I think so. Why not? The argument against might be that those in undeveloped countries would not have any work at all if they were paid the same. Maybe there could be other incentives to keep work local.

[Greyhound]

48. That would expose the lie.

The myth of scarcity that reaches beyond reason to an instinctual level, allows the parasites to keep people playing their game.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. Who will they sell stuff to? -nt

[Jackpine Radical]

30. The up-and-coming Chinese.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Nat that Americans get it

but it is time for GLOBAL ORGANIZING EFFORTS.

No, not the American workers union, but at the very least the NORTH AMERICAN Workers union...

Oh wait, that will happen... NOT

But if they can organize, so should we.

[jxnmsdemguy65]

10. Only thing I've been able to find in two years is door to door sales...

that really sucks...

[Kurovski]

11. K&R. (nt)

[amborin]

16. K&R

[laughingliberal]

19. K & R nt

[waiting for hope]

20. K&R

[abelenkpe]

21. We need global labor unions. nt

[Goldstein1984]

41. There is one - The Wobblies

Industrial Workers of the World: http://www.iww.org/

I believe the staff of a Starbucks just organized and unionized the shop under the IWW.

[socialist_n_TN]

53. Are they still around???????????

Good for the Wobblies! They were some heroes of mine when I first started getting into unions and economic politics.

[Nikki Stone1]

22. Well fucking duh.

Lots of us have been screaming about this, but we're told we're anti-Obama. Bullshit.

[truedelphi]

24. Solidarity with that statement.

We see the obvious - a kinder gentler, CorporRATe give away.

We mention it and suddenly we are called FREEPERS?

How dare the non thinking say that.

[earth mom]

23. People who consider themselves educated and politically astute on DU can't even see

how we've all been screwed over and that this time around Mr. Hope and Change Obama is the one screwing us over.

Never mind the rest of the country who can't be bothered to read a book much less educate themselves about politics or anything more important than what's on t.v. tonight.

[ShortnFiery]

54. I call it willful ignorance. I don't know how they accomplish it given the cognitive dissonance?

Matrix Theory: Did they opt to take the blue pill instead of the red one? :shrug:

[bread_and_roses]

25. Great Big K & R here !!!!!!!!!

But until we are willing to question the very premises of Capitalism, we will get nowhere but further down this path.

and on edit - "question" is far too weak a word - I mean reject. utterly.

[ProgressIn2008]

26. K&R

[tonysam]

27. Neoliberalism is the ruination of the world

Not a shred of evidence this "philosophy" or cult is a bit effective in improving things, and in fact everything points to the opposite direction.

This laissez faire shit was already tried 100, 150 years ago, and it didn't work. It won't work now.

[WinkyDink]

28. Clinton deserved a mention. :-)

[autorank]

31. It's already happened - we're debt slaves

That happens when you get your mortgage or for those going to college, with the Wall Street style
student loans.

Bagent is great and a big k*r. But we're there, we've been there, it's now time to throw off
the chains etc.

[dotymed]

52. Really Ironic

when you apply for a job (so many available..lol) "they" run a credit check on you. How can this be legal? They financially destroy most of us, then run a credit check if you dare look for a decent job.....FEUDALISM.
Currently the UMC (upper middle class) may pay lip service to the plight that has affected the middle and lower class (OMG.. is there really still such a division in this day and age? more than ever..) They don't realize (yet) that most of their jobs will be outsourced also. It's a progression.
First take out the ones who can't afford to fight it. then move up the ladder. Soon our pharmacists will be in India, (two day mail for prescriptions), the banksters and financial con men will also be outsourced. Why share huge profits with them, when a hungry "underprivileged" bankster will work tirelessly for a set salary?
They didn't (hell we didn't) take to the streets when they displaced middle class and lower Americans. That is a sick label, but accurate for their purposes. When they outsource (it's already happening, cost effective you know)the jobs and careers of the UMC, Feudalism will be entrenched. Already Americans are earning less than they did 40 years ago, if they are employed. The corporations post record profits all the time...

[pleah]

32. K&R

[kohodog]

33. The System

Obama has been sucked in, just like Clinton. It's over.

Good Night and Good Luck.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

35. North Carolina schools considering selling naming rights to corporations

We could have Wal-Mart High, or Pepsi Elementary, or Exxon Junir High.
Or Check into Cash University.

[CoffeeCat]

46. Damn if I'm...

...sending my kids to Hostess Ho Ho High School.

[KoKo]

49. How 'bout "Hooters High."

:-(

[MkapX]

36. End the race to the bottom!

More prove that a democratic socialist government would work better in the USA. Im one of those young liberals who aren't afraid of the fearmongering about socialism on foxnews or CNN. WE NEED TO END THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM! And no im not one of those kids who has dreadlocks, wears a chi shirt and listens to RATM (well i take that last statement back Killing in the Name is an awesome song.) But my point about a democratic socialist government can be easily explained in 3 talking points for dummies

1) EDUCATION- Students in Democratic socialist states get PAID to go to school. THEY GET PAID...and only the kids who get good grades get money from the government so they are encouraged to try their best in school, to all those Sean Hannity's who say socialist encourages people to become lazy...WRONG! Oh did i mention that they get better test scores then american children

In america education system...college kids pay 50,000 for a 4 year degree from a state college have to take a full time job and still manage school and after school are expected to pay 100,000 in debt at a 4% interest rate. Get ready to move back in with your mom kids!

2) WAR- Socialist states don't bomb countries that had nothing to do with 9/11. That doesn't mean they don't defend their selves! Japan which is a genrous Nanny state has the JDF (japanese Defense Force)

In america....we bomb countries that had nothing to do with 9/11. We have bases all over the world and don't care what foreign governments think about us.

3) HEALTH- In socialist states...people are very happy and healthy. Stress is low and they don't have to worry about going bankrupt paying hospital bills

In america....people are expected to pay 7000000 dollars for a checkup and 8000 dollars for prescriptoon drugs, if you don't have insurance then oh well!

4) EQAULITY In socialist states the income is pretty much equal across the board with some millionaries who pay high taxes

In america...under the Bu$$$H tax plan..the rich got a break from paying taxes so that they can buy their 3rd luxury yacht. Poor got no tax breaks. The gap between rich and poor grow larger everyday

[scentopine]

37. Agree - another bomb tossed at us from our super filthy rich CEO

the austerity measures (12 hr work days, 6-7 days a week, paid for 40 hrs, cut back cleaning bathrooms, end to 401k matching, watered down health care, no raises for staff, record bonuses for exec staff, etc) have worked so well, they are now permanent.

We need to send a message to Washington. Jesus, the people who have jobs that require skill are so stressed out this is becoming a terrible country to live in. The people who don't have jobs are becoming so stressed out they are joining tea parties.

The work place has become completely hostile.

This is not going to end well. Obama, Geithner, Bernanke, Summers - the four horsemen of the middle class apocalypse.

[undergroundpanther]

38. soup is good food

"Soup Is Good Food"By the Dead Kennedys

We're sorry
But you're no longer needed
Or wanted
Or even cared about here
Machines can do a better job than you
This is what you get for asking questions

The unions agree
'Sacrifices must be made'
Computers never go on strike
To save the working man you've got to put him out to pasture

Looks like we'll have to let you go
Doesn't it feel fulfilling to know
That you-the human being-are now obsolete
And there's nothing in hell we'll let you do about it


Soup is good food-(We don't need you any more)
You made a good meal-(We don't need you any more)
Now how do you feel-(We don't need you any more)
To be shit out our ass
And thrown in the cold like a piece of trash
We're sorry
You'll just have to leave
Unemployment runs out after just six weeks
How does it feel to be a budget cut?
You're snipped
You no longer exist

Your number's been purged from our central computer
So we can rig the facts
And sweep you under the rug
See our chart? Unemployment's going down
If that ruins your life that's your problem

Soup is Good Food, Etc.
We're sorry
We hate to interrupt
But it's against the law to jump off this bridge
You'll just have to kill yourself somewhere else
A tourist might see you
And we wouldn't want that

I'm just doing my job, you know
So say uncle
And we'll take you to the mental health zoo
Force feed you mind-melting chemicals
Til even the outside world looks great

In hi-tech science research labs
It costs too much to bury all the dead
The mutilated disease-injected
Surplus rats who can't be used anymore

So they're dumped (with no minister present)
In a spiraling corkscrew dispose-all unit
Ground into sludge and flushed away
Aw geez:.

Soup is good food
You made a good meal, etc:.
We know how much you'd like to die
We joke about it on our coffee breaks
But we're paid to force you to have a nice day
In the wonderful world we made just for you
"Poor Rats", we human rodents chuckle
At least we get a dignified cremation
At yet
At 6:00 tomorrow morning
It's time to get up and go to work



My Question is What makes people accept slavery? The desire to have a "better life",That is the lure every human trafficking asshole uses on desperate people.Maybe the "better life" isn't anything more than a lie.

[Bluenorthwest]

51. That song. Just for a moment let us admit it decades old.

And the man who wrote it has spent much of the ensuing years suing his fellow band mates about money, and who gets the most of it, who 'owns' the brand and all of that. So, Jello and his words are products, made to sell to people who want that message, in order to gather up the monies, first and foremost. Share the royalty? He'd rather see the band dead than do that. So the irony, it is thick.

[liberation]

39. THEN STOP VOTING FOR MILLIONAIRES!

Seriously, the most over represented social group in our 3 branches of government are millionaires. The most egregious being the presidency (when was the last time a non-millionaire has been president?) and the senate where the majority of its members are millionaires.

The problem is that millionaires are the smallest social group in the USA.


Almost every single issue/problem we have faced for the past century (and even further back) stems from that very simple fact: or government is simply not representative of our society, period. When the smallest social group is the most grossly over represented one, people need to start facing facts and take a good hard look at what is going on.

We can tap dance all we want around that fact all we want, we can sing patriotic songs all day long, and shed a tear seeing old glory waving freely in the wind. But we will continue acting under the same MO which defines insanity: we will keep electing millionaires to "represent" us (doing the same thing over and over again), while we will act surprised when for the most part millionaires end up representing the interests of millionaires (expect a different outcome).

And I don't give a f*ck that the Dems present a gentler kinder millionaire, there are plenty of middle class members among the Dem ranks to chose for nomination.

[OhioChick]

40. K&R n/t

[Goldstein1984]

42. We control production, we control consumption of nonessentials

We could bring the economy of the world to its knees if we could organize and were willing to deal with the consequences.

The inevitable destination of the self-correcting course we are following cannot be discussed within the limits of the rules of DU.

[liberation]

44. I would hope that at least more people start realizing that labor is a real asset, capital is not

The biggest scam ever committed was that a very small set of people managed to convince the rest, that a non-existent thing like "capital" was worth more than real assets like land, labor, materials, knowledge, etc. Especially when we consider that the very filthy rich are so because they charge interest on capital. I.e. they charge interest on something which really does not exist.

Yes, I know capital in theory is used to represent real assets in a portable fashion. But that excuse of existence goes out of the window, once interest and credit appear in the picture. Because then capital, which is supposed to be a mean, becomes its own end. And thus witness the feedback loop we have been stuck in as a species for a few thousands of years (the Roman empire went through very similar bubbles of credits as our modern societies experience).

When some asshole can make more money in a single second, by simply moving it from one virtual location to another one, than a worker working every day for a year producing real products/assets. We have a very significant systemic issue here.

Oh, well... it is funny how obvious it is, and yet how most people can't see it. Which is why they want people to work their lives away, giving people a breather may allow them to look around and pay attention.

[Goldstein1984]

45. It is obvious, which demonstrates the human capacity for denial

It's like natural resources: 5% of the world's population consumes almost 20% of the world's petroleum and produces almost 25% of it's pollution. High school math tells us that as globalization, which is nothing but westernization, proceeds, we're going to need another four planets. Of course, that's impossible, so the obvious conclusion is that the US standard of living will decrease about five fold as globalization produces a global peasant class instead of the promised global middle class.

That's what you get in a culture in which investing capital to produce more capital via production of goods has cut out the goods and just focused, as you described, on manufacturing capital by moving capital around.

We're on a collision course: the human culture with the environment, and the working class with the ruling class.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[blindpig]

55. Mebbe this is what it takes....

for people to understand class solidarity. Because we do have more in common with the abused workers of the 3rd world than we do the bosses who exploit us all.

All of our lives we have benefited from the neo-colonial arrangement of the world economy even if we didn't recognize this. Now they are treating us like they've treated the rest forever, naked capitalism.

Workers of the world, unite!

[icee]

56. Every President post Eisenhower has progressively destroyed

the United States. Globalization is making the entire globe 97% poor. It is already too late. It will take a cataclysm, a black swan event to change things.

[Blue_Tires]

58. kick for later