Brazilian workers march in Rio de Janeiro, on July 11, 2013.
Americans at the mall.
July 12, 2013
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From
the first breaths of life to the last, our lives are being stolen out
from under us. From infant care and early education to Social Security
and Medicare, the dominant economic ideology is demanding more lifelong
sacrifices from the vulnerable to appease the gods of wealth.
Middle-class
wages are stagnant. Unemployment is stalled at record levels. College
education is leading to debt servitude and job insecurity. Millions of
unemployed Americans have essentially been abandoned by their
government. Poverty is soaring. Bankers break the law with impunity,
are bailed out, and go on breaking the law, richer than they were
before.
And
yet, bizarrely, the only Americans who seem to be seething with anger
are the beneficiaries of this economic injustice – the wealthiest and
most privileged among us. But those who are suffering seem strangely
passive.
As
long as they stay that way, there will be no movement to repair these
injustices. And the more these injustices are allowed to persist, the
harder it will be to end them.
Where the hell is the outrage? And how can we start some?
John and Paul
Paul Krugman ruminated
about inflation-free unemployment the other day, and he was feeling
pretty grim. Krugman is frustrated that clear prescriptions for this
kind of economy – prescriptions born in John Maynard Keynes’ day –
aren’t being followed. What John proposed then, Paul’s proposing now.
But
he’s not optimistic. “We can probably have high unemployment and
stable prices in Europe and America for a very long time,” writes
Krugman, “and all the wise heads will insist that it’s all structural,
and nothing can be done until the public accepts drastic cuts in the
safety net.”
One
source for Krugman’s pessimism is the extensive political science
research showing that “the level of unemployment matters hardly at all
for elections; all that matters is the rate of change in the months
leading up to the election.”
Krugman
concludes that “high unemployment could become accepted as the new
normal,” and worries that we’ll come to accept “a more or less permanent
depression” as the norm – adding that “we could suffer endless,
gratuitous suffering, yet the political and policy elite would feel no
need to change its ways.”
Quiet in the streets
He’s
right. A number of studies have linked political participation with
economic conditions, typically with results like those Krugman
describes. But that doesn’t explain why Brazilians took to the streets
in such large numbers recently.
A majority of Brazilians believe that their economy’s improving, according to a recent Pew survey.
59 percent of Brazilians rate their economy positively and 74 percent
say their personal financial situation is good. By contrast, the same
organization’s most recent US polling showed
that only 46 percent of Americans said they believe the economy’s
getting better, while 50 percent think it’s getting worse.
The
polling says that Brazilian political unrest is driven by a divergence
in goals and priorities between political leaders and the population,
triggered by poor public services, bus fare increases, and the cost of
hosting the World Cup.
A
similar divergence of priorities exists in this country. Washington’s
been focused on deficit reduction, while the public wants more job
creation and economic growth. But Americans are quiescent.
US
voter turnout is extremely low when compared to other developed
nations, even though we rank among the highest in terms of income
inequality. And other forms of political expression are also under-used.
The Occupy movement was originally very popular, for example, but most
people were easily persuaded to abandon it and return to a state of
quiet desperation.
Why?
Wealth
inequity and other economic injustices are the product of deliberate
policy choices – in taxation, Social Security, health care, financial
regulation, education, and a number of other policy areas. So why
aren’t Americans taking action?
The
“change” theories Krugman mentioned don’t tell the whole story. For one
thing, it’s not true that the lives of the majority are frozen in an
ugly stasis. Conditions continue to become objectively worse for the
great majority of Americans. But these ongoing changes – in actual
wages, in employment, in social mobility and wealth equity – have
received very little media attention or meaningful political debate.
It’s not that things aren’t changing. It’s that people don’t know they’re
changing. And without that knowledge the public becomes a canary in a
coalmine, only aware of its declining oxygen supply when it keels over
and dies.
It’s
an almost classic state of alienation, in which people may be acutely
aware of their own increasing difficulties (although sometimes they can
be numb to that as well) but experience them in a state of isolation.
That turns the anger inward, leading to crippling reactions like guilt
and despair. And repeated individual failures – failures made
increasingly likely in a skewed system – lead to a sense of learned helplessness.
The Radical Rich
Interestingly, the “change = political pressure” theory helps explain the rage of the “radical rich”
who – despite their almost unprecedented lives of wealth and privilege –
are articulating an anger which seems at first to be inexplicable. But
they, unlike the vast majority, are experiencing perceptible (if minor)
changes.
No
current policy proposals would substantially affect their historic
levels of wealth and privilege. But some Democratic policies would
slightly discommode the ultra-wealthy, and conservative forces have been
shrewd enough to trumpet that fact far and wide in a tone of barely
suppressed hysteria.
The
wealthy have already seen a cultural change, as the Occupy movement led
to previously-unheard public criticisms of their riches and political
influence. That helps explain today’s seemingly paradoxical political
situation, in which the beleaguered majority accepts the injustices
heaped upon them while coddled and ultra-wealthy Americans erupt in
fury.
The Alienators
The
media has failed to tell the story of our broken economy. The two-party
system is failing, too, as corporate forces complete their corruption
of the GOP and seize an ever-increasing chunk of the Democratic Party.
That’s
one of the reasons why voter turnout may not be the best indicator of
political awareness. Even pronounced financial hardship won’t result in
increased turnout or participation in electoral politics if neither
party is clearly articulating the majority’s needs or actively fighting
for its interests.
Many
politicians and pundits have also embraced the “structural
unemployment” argument which says people have the wrong skills for the
economy of today and tomorrow. But they told us the same in the 1960s, the 1970s …
In fact, they’ve said it for the last fifty years.
And yet technology jobs were down in
last week’s jobs report. “Structural unemployment” is another way of
telling you it’s your fault if you don’t have a job. It’s a lie.
The Exploiters Within
Even
worse, decades of “Pimp My Ride”/”Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”
acculturation have idealized the wealthy and have left the majority with
a subliminal message: If you’re struggling economically, it’s your fault.
The
leftist Brazilian educator Paolo Freire spoke of “internalizing the
oppressor consciousness”: internalizing the values of those who
colonize, rule, and exploit you, accepting their distorted, Matrix-like
view of the world as an objective reality.
This
can lead to agony, as well as continued exploitation. When I first
began writing about illegal foreclosures in 2009 and 2010 – before bank
fraud became common knowledge – I began receiving dozens of emails from
bank victims saying, in essence, “I thought it was my fault” and “I
thought I was the only one.” Some of them had contemplated suicide,
which is the tragic end point of an “oppressor consciousness” within.
Books and films like The Pursuit of Happyness have
delivered the message that anyone who’s struggling economically hasn’t
been brave enough, bold enough, or smart enough, while movements like
the Tea Party have mocked underwater homeowners and other victims of
Wall Street fraud and predation.
(That
movement was born in a “spontaneous” demonstration at the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange led by financial snake-oil salesman Rick Santelli,
in which pampered and taxpayer-rescued traders mocked Wall Street
homeowner/victims as “Losers! Losers!”)
The
last two Democratic Presidents have tried to have it both ways,
exalting, deregulating, and pampering the wealthy while speaking the
language of justice. That has weakened the Democratic “brand” and
undermined public confidence in government, while failing to resolve our
underlying economic problems. The rhetoric of “consensus” and
“compromise” contributed to the decades-long rise in inequality.
As
Paolo Friere said: “Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the
powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be
neutral.”
Action Plan
So what do we do?
1. Expand our avenues of political expression:
First, we need to remind ourselves that electoral politics is not the
only productive avenue for political activism –that we need strong and
independent voices and movements.
2. Refuse to let politicians use social issues to exploit us economically:
We also need to reject the exploitation and manipulation of progressive
values by corporatist politicians who use social issues like gay
marriage and reproductive rights exactly the way Republicans do – to manipulate their own base into
ignoring their own economic interests. Politicians who don’t take a
stand on economic issues should be rejected, up and down the ticket.
3. Explain what is changing – and contrast what is with what should be:
We need to do a better job of explaining what’s happening, so that we
can make people aware of the harmful changes taking place all around
them.
And it’s not just about “change”: It’s also about contrast – between economic conditions as they are, and conditions as they should be and could be, if we can find the political will.
4. Expand the vocabulary of the possible:
The “learned helplessness” outlook says “the rich and powerful always
win; we don’t stand a chance.” History tells us otherwise. From the
American Revolution to the breaking up of the railroads, from Teddy
Roosevelt’s trust-busting to FDR’s New Deal, from Ike’s Social Security
and labor union expansion to LBJ’s Great Society victories, we need to
remind ourselves of what we’ve accomplished under similar conditions.
5. Tell stories: And we need to tell stories – human stories. That’s why Tuesday night’s Bill Moyers special on PBS is so important. “Two American Families”
tells the story of a white family and an African-American family in
Milwaukee over two decades. Their stories bring home, in a personal way,
the agony that has accompanied the destruction of middle-class jobs – a
destruction that only happened because politicians made conscious
policy decisions.
To
explain, to provoke, to inspire, to tell stories is to begin the
process of political change. As Paolo Friere said, “To speak a true word
is to transform the
RJ Eskow is a writer,
business person, and songwriter/musician. He has worked as a consultant
in public policy, technology, and finance, specializing in healthcare
issues.
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