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The Real Class War

americanaffairsjournal.org

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Re: The Real Class War

#471

Post by war1025 »

joeblubaugh wrote: post #337
larnmar wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The election of Donald Trump could be seen as the result of the radicalisation of the working class.

Trump voters are on average wealthier than Clinton voters: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/0...

I would guess (completely based on personal experience) that most in the service class voted for Clinton, while working class is more centered around manufacturing, which does pay better than the service industry.

A big part of the issue is that people have different definitions for all the various social classes, so it's hard to compare things correctly.

Re: The Real Class War

#472

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

jimbokun wrote: post #286
ryanong wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marching is the first necessary step to get people organized. It is the lowest bar for starting to organize and to participate. It is where people can drum up support, awareness and donations.

Is this demonstrably, empirically true, or is it something you are just telling yourself because you desperately want it to be true?

I'll be the first one to sound the 'correlation is not causation' alarm over and over. After all, maybe the social issue is getting enough people to protest because society is already on the verge of change, rather than society changing because of the protests. Protesters may be getting the causation backwards. However, there's some evidence that protests are helpful in causing change.

My favorite study to establish a directional causal link looks at policies enacted after protests, accounting for the effect weather has on protests. The weather is presumably random enough to not be related to where society is, and it affects protest turnout, which lets you connect protest turnout to policy change causally. It's not definitive, but yeah, there's decent evidence.

I disagree with the other poster who is suggesting that marching is a necessary step for change, but it does seem to be a useful instrument for it.

Re: The Real Class War

#473

Post by remarkEon »

porknubbins wrote: post #460
neonate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there something patronizing, even patrician, about saying "the propaganda machine has so effectively manipulated the working class"? Why aren't their views as legit as yours or mine? There seems to me a great assumption in saying that they are "manipulated". Who isn't? This is the idea of false consciousness ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_consciousness ), and it has always seemed questionable to me. Who…

I know a lot of working class people, and their views are just as valid and often they are smarter/more well informed about some particular low level details of the way the economy/society operates. But without a college education in today’s complicated world its really hard to be a sophisticated consumer of information (even with one many fail) so working class people are more susceptible to manipulation by propagan…

I’m not following how a college education somehow inoculates someone from being susceptible to propaganda. Aren’t they just trying to install their own branded software on your OS anyway? Searching skeptically and critically is, at least judging based on some recent hires coming from well-know and (ostensibly) “elite” universities, not necessarily part of the base install.

100% not saying you intended to imply this, but the “sophisticated” qualifier can imply that the people or group in question is simply not reading the “right” things. Which is an interesting thought (again I don’t think you meant to imply that).

Re: The Real Class War

#474

Post by dang »

Wh1skey wrote: post #165

The story of Rome’s fall is both complicated and relatively straightforward yet it eerily resembles America: The state became too big and chaotic; the influence of money and private interests corrupted public institutions; and social and economic inequalities became so large that citizens lost faith in the system altogether and gradually fell into the arms of tyrants and demagogues. If all of that sounds familiar, we…

We've banned this account for spamming the threads with duplicate comments. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21645365.

Re: The Real Class War

#475

Post by dang »

giggles_giggles wrote: post #132
danaris wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The result has been a pause in income growth in the western world. We've benefited from cheap imported goods, but lost out in domestic growth. Except that's not true. There's been growth; it's just all gone to the very wealthy in the West.

> There's been growth; it's just all gone to the very wealthy in the West. Wrong. According to ourworldindata.org the world population in extreme poverty fell by half since 1990. I'm sure there are other sources to match this data as well. But that doesn't fit your narrative.

Could you please stop using HN for ideological flamewar? Your comment would be just fine without the nasty bits at the beginning and end.

We've had to ask you this before, and eventually ban accounts that keep ignoring such requests, so if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of the site more to heart, we'd appreciate it.

Re: The Real Class War

#476

Post by dang »

kaycebasques wrote: post #439
dang wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orwell's biography is so famous that we can guess the basics of how he would answer this: revolutionaries don't necessarily have your interests in mind; it's not hopeless; oppose the status quo; don't be blinded by ideology; be honest before being political.

Which biography are you referring to? I’m seeing a few. I didn’t know it was famous and never thought to check, but would definitely like to read now that you mention it. P.S. it’s always a treat to stumble on a non-moderator comment from dang

Oh, by biography I just meant his life story. I didn't have a specific book in mind.

Orwell is famous for having been early to break with political allies whose tactics he abhorred, even though they were fighting for his side. He had a genius for intellectual honesty, which made his writing exceptionally clear. If there's a clearer writer in English I wonder who it is.

Re: The Real Class War

#477

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

viburnum wrote: post #258
tvanantwerp wrote: post #159

I've spent my career working in public policy circles, and this rings true to me. > At most, working-class voters can cast their ballots for an “un­acceptable” candidate, but they can exercise no influence on policy formation or agency personnel, much less on governance areas that have been transferred to technocratic bodies. > Unlike the work­ing class, the professional managerial class is still capable of, and re­q…

Gay people can get married in America, which was completely unthinkable a generation ago. 100% due to activists, many who risked their lives to make it happen.

It's interesting (and sad to me) how popular this article is on here when it exclusively describes our current political climate in terms of economics.

It seems like social issues are front and center more than ever at the moment. I think economics can largely explain the divide, but it's interesting for the author to talk at length about the top 10% and leave this out -- as if the top 10% is filled with Econs who vote solely on what they think is best for them economically, and not based on how they feel about social issues.

I think the reason the current climate feels so "divided" is because it's more of a social divide than before.

I think it's easier when it's just a class war. But this is a human rights war. When your basic rights feel threatened, it gives you a little more skin in the game.

Re: The Real Class War

#478

Post by spyckie2 »

> This [billionaire] class has no idea what to do with its wealth, much less the power that results from it. It can only withdraw and extract, socially and economically, while the political justifications for its existence melt away.

Would love to hear his perspective on Bill Gates.

It's very interesting to think about this because most people pursue wealth for this very reason - to be freed from constraints of responsibility and to do whatever they want.

However, it seems to be the opposite once you get too much wealth - you all of a sudden become (due to the closed economic and political system) extremely publically responsible.

This is also the first generation of such public billionaires in an era where everyone with power has their lives projected on a live screen for people to see.

Re: The Real Class War

#479

Post by spyckie2 »

helen___keller wrote: post #152

A cogent and well-written article. My only possible contributions are the following: 1. The author perhaps underestimates the bottom 90%, who are written off as politically irrelevant (in terms of real power) near the start of the article. I do think there's a good reason for this, but we are only one true crisis away from that changing. For example, suppose India and Pakistan only were to have a nuclear engagement a…

For your point 2, I think it's really interesting to think about creating value and capturing value.

There's currently only 1 measure of success for capitalism, and that's capturing value. Creating value without capturing it is seen as stupid and a waste of time.

I wonder if this is slowly changing due to the nature of "capturing value" having so many negative externalities that it really ruins the spirit of creating value.

Re: The Real Class War

#480

Post by anigbrowl »

saalweachter wrote: post #416
anigbrowl wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you're trolling or extremely naive. $48k/year ain't shit when a) you'll pay some of that back in taxes and b) in places where you can get $15/hour for retail you also need to shell out $30k/year just to have a small studio apartment.

I would also add: 1. 60 hours per week at $15/hr for 52.1429 weeks per year is $47k/year. 2. In this magical world where you can get 60 hours per week on the clock, you'd also be entitled to time and a half for 20 hours per week, which would actually be $55k/year. You're underselling it here! 3. And if you're talking about two+ 30 hour / week minimum wage jobs: 3a. Chances are you're now in the world where you also d…

For real. I was thinking back to this thread earlier today as I realized that ~25 years ago in SF I was making $14 or $15 an hour as a network technician...but my rent (for a large room in a house share) was only about $300/mo. A studio apartment would have been around $5-600 and I think my monthly travel bill was $50 or so. I don't remember enough to think out my whole budget but offhand food was maybe half or 2/3 of what it is now so your blue collar dollar went a great deal farther than it does now.
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