We've heard a lot of election-year class warfare talk, from makers vs. takers to the 1% vs. the 99%. But Joel Kotkin's important new book, The New Class Conflict, suggests that America's real class problems are deeper, and more damaging, than election rhetoric.
Traditionally, America has been thought of as a place of great mobility -- one where anyone can conceivably grow up to be president, regardless of background. This has never been entirely true, of course. Most of our presidents have come from reasonably well-off backgrounds, and even Barack Obama, a barrier-breaker in some ways, came from an affluent background and enjoyed an expensive private-school upbringing. But the problem Kotkin describes goes beyond shots at the White House.
In a nutshell, Kotkin sees California, once again, in its role as an indicator of where the nation is headed. And it's not an attractive destination.
Once a state where the middle class reigned supreme, the apotheosis of the American Dream, California now has the wealth distribution -- and, in some disturbing ways, the political underpinnings -- of a Third World country. In Silicon Valley, a group of super-wealthy tech oligarchs live lives of almost unimaginable wealth, while only a few miles away, illegal immigrants live in squalor.
The oligarchs feel free, and even entitled, to choose the direction of society in the name of a greater good, but somehow their policies seem mostly to make the oligarchs richer and more powerful. Meanwhile, once-prosperous middle-class communities, revolving around manufacturing industries that have now moved overseas, either sink into poverty or become gentrified homes for the lower-upper class. The middle class itself, meanwhile, is increasingly, in Kotkin's words, "proletarianized," with security vanishing and jobs moving downscale.
The oligarchs are assisted in their control by what Kotkin calls the "clerisy" class -- an amalgam of academics, media and government employees who play the role that medieval clergy once played in legitimizing the powerful, and in implementing their policies while quelling resistance from the masses. The clerisy isn't as rich as the oligarchs, but it does pretty well for itself and is compensated in part by status, its positions allowing even its lower-paid members to feel superior to the hoi polloi.
Because it doesn't have to work in competitive industries, the clerisy favors regulations, land-use rules and environmental restrictions that make things worse for businesses -- especially the small "yeoman" businesses that traditionally sustained much of the middle class -- thus further hollowing out the middle of the income distribution. But the lower classes, sustained by government handouts and by rhetoric from the clerisy, provide enough votes to keep the machine running, at least for a while.
This process has gone very far in California, but it's well underway across America. As the Federal Reserve noted last week, despite a booming stock market and several years of "recovery," most Americans aren't doing well. In fact only the top 10% saw their incomes rise between 2010 and 2013.
#5
The middle class itself, meanwhile, is increasingly, in Kotkin's words, "proletarianized," with security vanishing and jobs moving downscale.
Many have moved out of state, or at least out of the urban areas. Small business started baling out about 20-25 years ago. Now the retirees are leaving.
#6
Again, NORTH-VS-SOUTH HEMISPHERES IN NEW COLD WAR, WID THE STILL-EXPANDING ISIS CALIPHATE ON THE OWG "MASON-DIXON LINE" AKA THE EQUATOR.
From the ME to the Philippines + SE Asia.
* FYI WORLD NEWS > IRAN SUPREME LEADER [Khameini]: PREPARE FOR THE "NEW WORLD ORDER".
Which IRAN = 'MAHANIST" RISING IRAN = OWG CO-SUPERPOWER IRAN is helping to create, + in which Iran will ultimately supplant or replace the US, etc. as Western Capitalism + influence collapses. IRAN + ISLAM MAKING MIGHTY INROADS INTO LATIN AMERICA + PARTS OF ASIA.
[DAWN] IT is uncertain whether the wretched show in Islamabad is drawing to a close or entering a new phase. Maybe the floods are a divine warning to our so-called leaders to stop fiddling while Pakistain drowns. There is desperate hope that some good may yet come out of the ridiculous shenanigans of almost a month. But do any of our leaders look as if they will learn anything from this tragicomedy that is pure tragedy for the people? As for the media, it is orgasmic over 'script writers', 'connecting the dots', 'Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... doctrines', 'Plans A, B and C', division of national policymaking between elected civilians and the permanent 'deep state', etc.
None of the main cast inside and outside parliament, with honourable exceptions, has emerged with any credit. It is pure fantasy to think this soft state spectacle can translate into movement towards better governance and more inclusive and institutional democracy. The political system is simply proof against any serious commitment to addressing the fundamental needs and entitlements of our people. Not even the indefinite 'postponement' of the visit of the president of China, our most important friend and neighbour, can shame the shameless. The attempt to drag his visit into our political wrangling is unforgiveable.
Can the prime minister now take responsibility and rise to the occasion by enabling fresh, free and fair and non-controversial elections under a genuinely independent caretaker government and a credible election commission, even if he is understandably and justifiably convinced that neither law nor established fact compel him to do so? Can this, including essential minimum electoral reform, be done in 90 days? Or will all the change we can look forward to amount to what the French say: plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change the more they are the same.) That would be the confirmation of a failing state. Anybody concerned?
Democracy has become a mantra. It generally means the rule of the people. Plato despised it as the rule of the mob that inevitably led to dictatorship and tyranny. The authors of the US constitution were slave-owners and ardent advocates of Enlightenment democracy minus the unenlightened masses. The US has by and large adhered to this rule of the one per cent. Churchill regarded democracy as the worst form of governance except for all the others. Lee Kuan Yew observed democracy was like a Rolls Royce. It is the best car on the road. Buy it if you can afford it. If not, it will be the worst investment you can make. He said for democracy not to be a mockery of itself, the people would first need to have an economic stake in it. Otherwise, they would simply ask for the moon. We have democracy without governance and electricity!
Real change takes time. But what should be possible is to get onto the right path and make progress towards it. This will require scale and quality of effort, the progressive emergence of an appropriate political culture and the development of essential institutions of governance. This will entail a colossal investment in the full range of human resource development. Does our power structure, as reflected in our budget allocations and revenue collection, permit this? Our politically astute 'leaders' have other priorities, ranging from nursing their bank accounts to nursing their egos.
A social and political transformation can never be promoted by 'long marches' and political theatre including passionate and rehearsed declamations. It means achieving what today may be considered 'impossible' by releasing the people's pent-up moral, social and intellectual energies on an unprecedented scale. It comprises focused and continuous activity, analysis, consultation, discussion, mobilization and organization at every level of society. Only such a participatory process can maximize ownership of political agendas, policies and goals. Does any such vision even occur to our essentially uneducated and uninterested ego-stricken political peacocks?
The greatest barrier to national transformation is said to be the intolerance of religious orthodoxy that permeates our entire society. This is true. But the message of Islam is clearly inclusive, indeed universal, tolerant, mindful of exploitation and oppression, and congenial to rational inquiry. It was centuries after the Prophet (PTUI!) when the school of tradition and consensus politically prevailed over the school of informed opinion and reasoned reception. The doors of ijtehad were closed. This was a political development within a religious tradition which provided the basis for orthodoxy for the next 1,000 years.
It enabled the community of believers to survive two calamitous encounters: the destruction wrought by the Mongols and the humiliations inflicted by the West. But it also circumscribed the nature and effectiveness of the responses of Moslem societies to the challenges of modernity and globalisation by inhibiting the internalising of the scientific temper, including the spirit of rational enquiry which had once been the pride of a confident Islamic civilisation.
Many of Islam's greatest thinkers, including Allama Iqbal, have sought to 'reopen the doors of ijtehad' to allow the reception of Islam's eternal truths in a manner compatible with a successful engagement with contemporary challenges.
However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... intellectual, moral and political passivity -- in the face of an intolerant, ignorant and violent conservatism that sets a narrow interpretation of divine injunctions against the liberation and welfare of the Moslem masses -- has largely frustrated efforts at reforming religious thought. As a result, Moslem societies have generally been denied progress in scientific knowledge, technological development, political freedom and well-being. Our opportunistic leaders are irredeemably irrelevant.
A transition to modernity has to be achieved, or be under way, for concepts such as democracy, the constitution and the rule of law to be effective and meaningful for our people and society. Otherwise, they will tend to reflect, even legitimise, the control of prevailing power structures and practices inimical to social and political progress. Without massive investments in education, health, socio-economic security and institutional capacity, the conventional checklists of democracy and good governance will never amount to progress towards transformation.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2014 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Bingo, and a great take on the situation. Millions of refugees always make the problem worse.
There are always lunatics lurking in the crevices of Muslim politics prepared to proclaim a new caliphate; there isn't always a recruiting pool in the form of nearly 14 million displaced people (11 million Syrians, or half the country's population, and 2.8 million Iraqis, or a tenth of the country's population). When I wrote about the region's refugee disaster at Tablet in July ("Between the Settlers and Unsettlers, the One State Solution is On Our Doorstep") the going estimate was only 10 million. A new UN study, though, claims that half of Syrians are displaced. Many of them will have nothing to go back to. When people have nothing to lose, they fight to the death and inflict horrors on others.
That is what civilizational decline looks like in real time. The roots of the crisis were visible four years ago before the so-called Arab Spring beguiled the foreign policy wonks. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrian farmers already were living in tent camps around Syrian cities before the Syrian civil war began in April 2011. Israeli analysts knew this. In March 2011 Paul Rivlin of Tel Aviv University released a study of the collapse of Syrian agriculture, widely cited in Arab media but unmentioned in the English language press (except my essay on the topic). Most of what passes for political science treats peoples and politicians as if they were so many pieces on a fixed game board. This time the game board is shrinking and the pieces are falling off.
The Arab states are failed states, except for the few with enough hydrocarbons to subsidize every facet of economic life. Egypt lives on a $15 billion annual subsidy from the Gulf states and, if that persists, will remain stable if not quite prosperous. Syria is a ruin, along with large parts of Iraq. The lives of tens of millions of people were fragile before the fighting broke out (30% of Syrians lived on less than $1.60 a day), and now they are utterly ruined. The hordes of combatants displace more people, and these join the hordes, in a snowball effect. That's what drove the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, and that's what's driving the war in the Levant.
When I wrote in 2011 that Islam was dying, this was precisely what I forecast. You can't unscramble this egg. The international organizations, Bill Clinton, George Soros and other people of that ilk will draw up plans, propose funding, hold conferences and publish studies, to no avail. The raw despair of millions of people ripped out of the cocoon of traditional society, bereft of ties of kinship and custom, will feed the meatgrinder. Terrorist organizations that were hitherto less flamboyant ("moderate" is a misdesignation), e.g. the Muslim Brotherhood (and its Palestine branch Hamas), will compete with the caliphate for the loyalties of enraged young people. The delusion about Muslim democracy that afflicted utopians of both parties is now inoperative. War will end when the pool of prospective fighters has been exhausted.
#1
The delusion about Muslim democracy that afflicted utopians of both parties is now inoperative
No longer have a democracy at home, how are you going to export it elsewhere? It's an oligarchy with a facade of the old republic but the power distribution of a few versus the many.
[Real Clear Politics] CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It will diminish the negative effect on Democrats because, as you say, any Republican will say, look, this is what's going on, he's going to hit you right after the election. On the other hand, if he did this now -- if he did this executive order -- which would be tremendously unconstitutional, part from the policy implications, it would be a firestorm. It would be in the headlines all day. It would really energize the GOP base and it would sink a whole bunch of Democratic Senators.
But to me, the real issue is just the way he just lies about this the same way he did with ISIS. He didn't call ISIS the JV team, though he obviously did. In the middle of his sentence explaining this, which is ridiculous, he saying -- he actually interrupted himself to say, 'Chuck,' he says, 'and I'm being honest now.' Well, whenever a politician interrupts a sentence to put that in, you know what you are about to hear is a bald-faced lie. And he did it without flinching. You sort of have to tip your hat. Statements such as "Let me be clear" or "I'm being honest" always precede a test question. Don't forget "the truth of the matter is..."
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2014 14:19 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I have a friend who always says "if I'm honest with myself...". I always thought that was a particularly strange sentence. Why would you ever be dishonest with yourself unless you are unhinged.
#2
Another incompetent c*nt, put into an important position, that looks like a 6th grade school teacher.
Seems like many of Obama's picks fit the same mold.
#5
Medicaid program for the poor in more than half of the 57 50 U.S. states. FIFY Sylvia.
It's 57 because Obama, our dear leader, deemed this plus he's ignorant of U.S. geography, but then again, what would one expect?
In early August, 57 percent of 1,599 respondents said they opposed the healthcare law. 57 must be a magical number. Those opposed to ObummerCare have fluctuated around this number consistently from even before it was passed rammed down our throats with out a chance to read it.
#11
Let the voters decide? Are you insane? The voters will only make the wrong choice! That's what the elites in DC are there for, to make the decisions for us that we're too incompetent to make.
What's next? Actually use the Constitution? Do you even use your head for something other than a hatrack?
[/sarc]
;-p
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
#1 When she is thrown under the bus, will it cover her injuries? 
