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The Real Class War

americanaffairsjournal.org

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111–120 of 634 posts

Re: The Real Class War

#111

Post by jonbon2 »

simonh wrote: post #105

This is all driven by globalisation, and don't get me wrong I'm a globalist, but this is just a fact. First manual labour in manufacturing was outsourced abroad, then higher tier tech jobs in software and product engineering. Now big firms from former third world countries are muscling in on markets at every level of the economy, creating competition at every level of business. You can't add hundreds of millions of C…

The author talks about this in another of his articles called "The tree fusions"[1]

[1]-https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/08/the-three-fusions...

Re: The Real Class War

#112

Post by squiggleblaz »

leereeves wrote: post #60
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those would be the same kind of arguments that justified communism, which was once popular among the intelligentsia? Or the arguments for American democracy and the nascent European democracies, whose founding fathers advocated for such systems by citing literature from Ancient Greece to the Enlightenment. The 19th century saw a wave of low-cost, mass-market editions of the classical canon precisely because it was…

You did more than argue in favor of staying informed and aware of the tradition of political argument. You suggested that the political opinions of those who do not spend time on that are illegitimate: > Could it not be argued that the legitimacy of views depends on how much information the person has access to? But politics is not mathematics. Political ideas should be judged by their outcomes, not their theoretical…

I can't believe you have to defend democracy in this day and age. Reading your interlocutors, I feel like I fell into the Queen Victoria's reign. But it seems the old patricians never die, they just become deluded members of the working classes trying to keep other members of the working classes away from their bit of the pie.

Re: The Real Class War

#113

Post by frockington1 »

rustyboy wrote: post #100
frockington1 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather live in a country where an individual can save and invest to become a billionaire. Look at America vs Canada, Scandinavia, England, and Germany the last decade. Where is the growth and innovation in those countries? Why do brilliant people flock to America to start their start up? I want to live in a country with opportunity, not one of equality. Thankfully with an American or EU passport you can choos…

That's a false dichotomy. There is no reason that you can't have the opportunity to be a billionaire, while making sure that no one goes homeless or dies from a preventable disease. People love to point to FANNG but the reality is America did this for the boomers, union membership was over 30% and we still had super wealthy people. CEO to average employee income was around 80:1, now it's closer to 250:1. When 3 peopl…

I agree that there can be more equitable distribution. I struggle with why seizing wealth through taxes is the current war drum being beat. I think the most productive means to making wealth would be stressing the importance of investing and compound growth as part of the high school curriculum. Note: That's where my idea ends right now, I don't have a viable implementation path

Re: The Real Class War

#114

Post by unraveller »

kingkawn wrote: post #5

I disagree that the working class is not going to radicalize itself. They too are out here on the internet, talking to each other and culturally evolving at an unprecedented rate, like everyone else. For the first time they have the power to publish and think in public uncoupled from professional barrier. Better believe it’s being used, and that they will assert their awareness.

>they have the power to publish

On the off chance some unsubscribe from their media streams to create then platform X is well prepared to flag their ideas as too similar to other quarantined fake news items.

Re: The Real Class War

#115

Post by kaibee »

barry-cotter wrote: post #63
TomMckenny wrote: post #52

It makes sense that the top 10% to 2% become more active as blame and anger are re-routed toward them. For example, many people think the "elite" are the educated but not necessarily the wealthy. So for many, adjunct faculty are called "elites" while the Koch brothers are not. Likewise, discussions of wealth inequality are becoming conflated with income inequality. Yet the professional class has only marginal voting…

> Yet the professional class has only marginal voting power and comparatively little to contribute to political funding, so it's not surprising that the astute ones are concerned. Likelihood of voting is highly correlated with education. I wouldn’t be surprised if the top ten percent are three or four times more likely to vote than the bottom decile. Money is also far less important in politics than many think. If mo…

I think this is a somewhat recent (6-7~ years ish?) development. In the early 2000's, money was much more important than it is now.

Re: The Real Class War

#116

Post by mc32 »

simonh wrote: post #105

This is all driven by globalisation, and don't get me wrong I'm a globalist, but this is just a fact. First manual labour in manufacturing was outsourced abroad, then higher tier tech jobs in software and product engineering. Now big firms from former third world countries are muscling in on markets at every level of the economy, creating competition at every level of business. You can't add hundreds of millions of C…

One big problem is GHW, Clinton, GW and Obama said we’d be able to sell into their market and we’d come up on top. That the middle class would see more and better jobs as a consequence (we’d graduate from arduous manual labor into more value add).

That’s been nonsense.

Perot was prescient and he was right. But we laughed him off the stage.

Instead, big biz, some bankers some dealmakers, politicians and other value add service professionals made money.

Joe and Jill Bluecollar and Cindy and Ted Middleclass saw an erosion in job prospects, income, job security and future prospects for their children. These people cannot afford the Chinese au pair to teach their kids Chinese.

These people vote for Bernie and they vote for Trump. The pols made that bed, so don’t cry when people vote for the above. It was a long time coming.

Re: The Real Class War

#117

Post by SolaceQuantum »

pas wrote: post #96
vinceguidry wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The harsh truth is that your largest effects will always be local. What you do for your immediate family and friends will always dwarf anything you can do for society. To expect your day to day to serve a larger social purpose is to subordinate either your lifestyle or your cognitive integrity to something you’ll never be able to completely convince yourself isn’t a lie you’re telling yourself. If you can put your ki…

The big ideological divide in families (usually between generations) is a serious symptom of our inability to really communicate and compromise. In large part these ideological groupings are meaningless and inconsequential. Mostly because it doesn't really matter, for most of the people the feedback is very much lost in the noise. (There's institutional inertia, states are big, changes are slow, Congress doesn't chan…

"The big ideological divide in families (usually between generations) is a serious symptom of our inability to really communicate and compromise. In large part these ideological groupings are meaningless and inconsequential."

I think this is only true in very specific circumstances. Ideological divide can also mean disowning your child for being gay, which is why among homeless youth there's a disproportionate amount of LGBTQ children and why the concept of "found families" is very relevant to the LGBTQ community. Certain families also will disown or withdraw from any member who doesn't follow religious teachings.

Often times ideological differences is quite meaningful when it results in the abuse/neglect of vulnerable family members.

Re: The Real Class War

#118

Post by Pigo »

nsporillo wrote: post #110
simonh wrote: post #105

This is all driven by globalisation, and don't get me wrong I'm a globalist, but this is just a fact. First manual labour in manufacturing was outsourced abroad, then higher tier tech jobs in software and product engineering. Now big firms from former third world countries are muscling in on markets at every level of the economy, creating competition at every level of business. You can't add hundreds of millions of C…

Average voter doesn't care about the merits of competitive advantage. Maybe if the Chinese actually opened their markets up to competition would we see true benefits in the west. The problem of course is preventing the majority of the wealth going straight to the top.

Maybe if China played by the rules, and did something about ip theft...

Re: The Real Class War

#119

Post by domnomnom »

roenxi wrote: post #24

What a fantastic article; this might be the high point for my 2019 Hacker News reading. What clarity of vision. It is remarkable reflecting after an article like that on the complete inability of the US political system to organise itself to reward work done rather than access to the super-elite social circles. I'd love to know if this Julius fellow has a take on what mechanisms the 0.1% are using to drive the growin…

Hmm may actually read it

Re: The Real Class War

#120

Post by _bxg1 »

frockington1 wrote: post #86
_bxg1 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's radical energy there, but here's the clincher: it will never turn into anything productive because the Republican propaganda machine has so effectively manipulated the working class into continuing to think that public services are their enemy . They will rant and holler about communism until the billionaires have milked them of their very last dollar, and then blame that on communism too. The very policies t…

This is a very elitist and condescending ran. Assuming everyone who disagrees with you is being manipulated is not going to bring anyone to your side and will further distance people who disagree.

It's not "everyone who disagrees with me", it's one very specific point: public intervention - be it healthcare, infrastructure, job training for people in dying industries, workers' rights, etc. - is the only way to stave off the natural gravity of economic stratification. But I've seen more Fox News than most people here probably have, I listened to hours of conservative talk radio in the car with my mom over the years, I've argued the points and heard theirs.

They think the solution to everything is faith and the free market. They vote for reduced taxation and deregulation when the only people it benefits are the 1%. They buy into the meritocratic view that the ultra-wealthy earned it, and that it's somehow immoral to try and redistribute some of that insane wealth. They do not - cannot - accept the idea that the meritocracy is a sham, and that they need help from their society if they want things to get better. And I truly believe that most of the strength of that entrenchment is from hours and hours of exposure, day-in, day-out, to the ranting and raving lunatics (or perhaps masterful orators) on Fox News and talk radio.

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