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The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

stratfor.com

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Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#31

Post by jdunck »

amcaskill wrote: post #22
awakeasleep wrote: post #13

This sure fits an interesting middle ground sort of journalism. I don't think I'm quite qualified to describe it, anyone up to help? For one, it tackles the same insecurity subject conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones approach. However, he keeps it in the realm of rationality. What is the "It"? The main subject seems to be a description of the position and orientation of classes in USA society, and how they're changi…

Stratfor isn't really a news media company like the times or a tv station. IIRC they sell analysis & forecasting services to governments and large corporations. The author of this article wrote a book called The Next 100 Years which is a pretty interesting read.

That is their public, shiny face. But they do a lot of intelligence and paramilitary work as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Stratfor_email_leak

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#32

Post by [deleted] »

amcaskill wrote: post #22
awakeasleep wrote: post #13

This sure fits an interesting middle ground sort of journalism. I don't think I'm quite qualified to describe it, anyone up to help? For one, it tackles the same insecurity subject conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones approach. However, he keeps it in the realm of rationality. What is the "It"? The main subject seems to be a description of the position and orientation of classes in USA society, and how they're changi…

Stratfor isn't really a news media company like the times or a tv station. IIRC they sell analysis & forecasting services to governments and large corporations. The author of this article wrote a book called The Next 100 Years which is a pretty interesting read.

[deleted]

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#33

Post by seliopou »

scarmig wrote: post #15
awakeasleep wrote: post #13

This sure fits an interesting middle ground sort of journalism. I don't think I'm quite qualified to describe it, anyone up to help? For one, it tackles the same insecurity subject conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones approach. However, he keeps it in the realm of rationality. What is the "It"? The main subject seems to be a description of the position and orientation of classes in USA society, and how they're changi…

Class is both very real and very touchy in the United States. But people use the term in a really broken way, typically trying to map arbitrary income groups with classes. Which is convenient for everyone: Democratic-aligned classes can try to maintain their privileged position using class rhetoric to bludgeon Republican-aligned classes, and Republican-aligned classes can deny class altogether and take advantage of r…

> disempowered classes align themselves in the partisan coalitions out of genuine self-interest, not out of false consciousness. They're just getting a disproportionately small serving of the winnings.

To quote John Steinbeck, "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#34

Post by Fluda3 »

martinced wrote: post #28
seiji wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep writing more around here. We need people like you and comments like this.

No we don't. These are poisonous words made by people dreaming of a world made of slaves. Dreaming of a world where the word "freedom" would be forbidden. The last thing we need now in a time of crisis is socialists or communists trying to push their agenda.

I find HN to be quite rich, in both content and discussions about said content. I don't post because I usually don't have anything significant to add to the conversation.

I have to say though, your comment deeply disturbs me. Those weren't poisonous words. And I highly doubt that his comment, which seems quite informative, comes from his "dreams of a world made of slaves".

I can tell you're American. Constantly when I travel to the US, I get spoon fed this bullshit when people find out I'm Canadian. I have literally - on more than one occasion - had people tell me how they couldn't live in a "socialist" country like Canada. They then proceed to educate me (without any indication I want to hear shit about their opinions or beliefs) on the benefits of capitalism, how Obama is enslaving America, how universal health care is freedom lessening crap, and so on. It blows my mind the level of intolerance and subtle hatred.

He's just being part of the discussion, providing opposing information and some of his opinions. Chill the fuck out.

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#35

Post by scarmig »

alexqgb wrote: post #24
scarmig wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marx, however, was and is historically inaccurate. Both in his understanding of the past and his predictions of the future. Check out Immanuel Wallerstein or Fernand Braudel for more accurate, careful, and relevant histories that're not just glorifications of the ruling class. Looking at your example, it fails to explain why wages rose for 200 years before the alleged stagnation hit (sure, you can hack some Leninist…

Braudel is a fantastic historian in his own right, but especially important in this context in that he started his career as an overt Marxist who wanted to contribute to Marx's theory by supplying the actual history on which it depended. That is to say, a history told not from the perspective of popes and princes, but one based on material data about the world's great systems; macro-economic factors like weather patt…

It warms my heart to no end that there's another Braudel fan here! =)

I didn't intend to come off as wholly dismissive of Marx--it's very fair to say that he's one of the great thinkers of political economy and sociology. But relying on 19th century thinkers when they've been surpassed always strikes me as unfortunate.

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#36

Post by anigbrowl »

CleanedStar wrote: post #3

When Karl Marx wrote Capital in 1867, he said capitalism would never be able to get rid of credit bubbles, financial crises, high unemployment etc. He said that over time the problems would get worse and worse with greater and greater financial crises. Here we are about a century and a half later and you just have to look at the housing bubble, the bank crisis, TARP and the government bailout, unemployment in the US…

Basically workers create $240 of wealth every eight hour work day, but are only paid $200 a day.

But workers don't create that much wealth in a day by themselves; they need plant and material to create the product or service that is sold. The buildings they work in, the machinery that they use, the raw material they consume, are equally important inputs to production and it is these which are supplied by the capitalist.

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#37

Post by TruthElixirX »

pjzedalis wrote: post #17
tsotha wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of Marx's critiques of capitalism make some sense. The problem is nobody has come up with a better system for lifting people out of poverty.

Why does capitalism have to lift anyone out of poverty? The opportunity to own assets and control your own production sometimes provides the means to do so. Just because enough impoverished people are not becoming rich per year does not mean capitalism is not working as intended.

Less people are living in poverty now more than ever:

http://www.worldvision.org/news/worldwide-fewer-people-live-...

Its just that wealth is being more evenly distributed and the U.S. is feeling some of that pressure.

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#39

Post by seliopou »

CleanedStar wrote: post #3

When Karl Marx wrote Capital in 1867, he said capitalism would never be able to get rid of credit bubbles, financial crises, high unemployment etc. He said that over time the problems would get worse and worse with greater and greater financial crises. Here we are about a century and a half later and you just have to look at the housing bubble, the bank crisis, TARP and the government bailout, unemployment in the US…

> The central contradiction in capitalism Marx spells out clearly in Capital, although its a little too much to explain in a comment. Basically workers create $240 of wealth every eight hour work day, but are only paid $200 a day. The $40 goes to profit, to get more capital, to make more commodities.

The labor theory of value just doesn't make sense. The only system in which it does is a communist system. And even then, if somebody values the commodity more than the value of the labor that went into producing it, they'll pay that price to acquire it on the secondary market.

Re: The Crisis of the Middle Class and American Power

#40

Post by chii »

pdonis wrote: post #16

One thing I don't see addressed here (or in other articles linked to in this thread): corporate governance. Abusing the standard corporate governance model, where shareholders delegate to a Board of Directors, is one of the key ways that rich people game the system.

can you explain a bit more about this? i dont understand how delegating to a board is an exploit.
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