Muncie, IN Blog– Over the past several years, I’ve been given Sheila Kennedy pokes from the left in her daily informative blog. She fits the mold of a classic Clintonite while I support Sanders vision of Democratic Socialism because he’s much closer to where we need to be if we want to see globalization successful. The free market may sound great in speeches where theory is treated as valid data, but in the application, the results are war, climate problems, mass poverty, and global inequality. Capitalism isn’t sustainable without severe checks and balance in power. Those with economic power will exploit others the working class via class warfare. We have plenty of history to prove our point.
Sheila wrote a great piece this morning called “Connect the Dots!”, where she discusses the social effects of our economic system – capitalism. I’ve already covered capitalism’s failure based on the legendary work of Thomas Piketty, a famous economist. He called free market capitalism an upward distribution scheme delivering cash to the owners of capital – Plutarchs. Taxes are meant to redistribute the money back to the working classes so they can participate in the fruits of a wealthy economy. Since the 1980’s, under Neoliberalism, or the forces of “trickle-down economic theory,” we’ve created the worst case scenario by taking monies from the from the lower and middle classes and funneling it to the wealthiest citizens. The theory is the rich will spend their money creating high paying jobs for the working class. Rubbish.
Sheila writes:
There is ample evidence that large gaps between the rich and poor retard economic growth, depress marriage rates, and raise crime and homicide rates. (Ignoring the 41 million Americans who live in abject poverty in order to gift your already obscenely wealthy donors with a tax cut also implicates that pesky little thing called morality.) Historical precedent suggests that these effects–left unaddressed– ultimately destroy societies.
She’s right. In fact, you could attribute nearly all social ills to our free market economic system. What percent of the .001% have dark skin or are female?
Focusing on our economy is fine, but we need more sociologists participating in public policymaking versus economists. However, it’s hard to find wealthy donors who want to donate monies to sociologists who seek to make the most people in society happy, healthy and prosperous. The rich are driven by greed. They want more for themselves only.
All the elements to protect the working class have been deliberately eliminated. The Democratic Party bailed on workers in the 1990’s under Bill Clinton which is why Hillary ignored the depressed and angry industrial swaths in the USA. She conceded the post-industrial America to Donald Trump, the lying populist who just got a major tax reform package passed which lavishes the richest Americans while squatting on workers. Wait until all the details surface on the tax bill over the coming months.
Paul Ryan has already hinted he’ll be riding into a lavish sunset after conning America with the assistance of propaganda media outlets. The Donor Class will reward him with a very lucrative position. Before Paul mounts his horse, he’ll be coming for Social Security, Medicare, Veterans benefits, and Medicaid in 2018.
The social safety net has been the target of the Donor Class since FDR used the New Deal to save capitalism in the 1930’s. At that time, the unions accounted for over 80% of all workers. Unions account for 12% today so that the Democratic Party will offer no resistance. Not only because they can’t, but they won’t since they are financially bonded to their Plutarchs or Donor Class.
This is precisely class warfare, but the left was neutered decades ago, so there was little resistance. Because of the manipulative nature of propaganda media, we have divided the working class into conservatives and liberals. They are advocating against their self-interests. We need to unify. The press drives wedge issues between us like abortion, racism, welfare, anti-government rhetoric, etc.
I also know folks who loved Obama, but he did very little to help the working class and added significant wealth to Donors despite their tanking the global economy in 2008. The financial lobby worked with Bill Clinton on deregulating banks which ultimately caused the global recession under George Bush.
This is very important…it’s a war between social classes, not political parties. Both Donor controlled political parties work for the same team (class). The working class has no political clout, yet. If you haven’t heard of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), you should probably take a look. Here’s a quote from one of its leaders, Cornell West:
DSA is the major organization on the American left with an all-embracing moral vision, systematic social analysis, and political praxis rooted in the quest for radical democracy, social freedom, and individual liberties.
We are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo.
We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane international social order based both on democratic planning and market mechanisms to achieve equitable distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy environment, sustainable growth, gender and racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.
