dagblog - Comments for "Wither the Middle Class"

For myself the strength of a

Tommy Holmes — Sun, 08 May 2011 11:39:24 +0000

For myself the strength of a nations middle class is the true measure of it's greatness. It shows a system with a true ability to allow a person assertion to a fair standard of living, and inclusiveness in education, justice and overall opportunity. The political terminology of conservative - liberal or what have you is only useful for divisive purposes and general name calling. People are mixtures of all the concepts that exist on both sides of the isle. Why not just keep the debate to what is fair and just for the people of this nation and dispense with the Right and Left jargon. Right Left argument is used for the purpose of divide and conquer. Let's see past this and do what is the correct thing for America. I realize what is "right" is debatable in itself but if people would look inside themselves instead of externally at their wants and perceived needs; I'm sure we could come to a consensus.

.............................

Flavius — Tue, 03 May 2011 10:50:29 +0000

In reply to Wither the Middle Class

.................................................neoliberalism is less an economic system or social order than global capital’s management style for a situation of lower profits. In this sense we might recognize the birth of neoliberalism not in the ideologies of Thatcher and Reagan but in the California tax revolts of 1978: what played at being a moral jihad of suburban homeowners was simply part of an intensifying competition for a smaller pool of profits. Similarly, New York City’s 1975 brush with bankruptcy was a struggle between municipal government and Wall Street over insufficient revenues; the utter triumph of the latter was the shape of things to come.

But the seeming restoration of profit by the financial sector proved illusory. The neoliberal strategy of opening new markets to sell more widgets, and internalizing more cheap labor into the growing empire of capital, arrived both at diminishing returns and at the limits of the globe. One could say that the ’70s crisis was a wound to the economy; the following decades provided a series of wrappings, poultices and painkillers. The blowout of 2008 was akin to their sudden removal—beneath which the old wound had only deepened and abscessed. Real profit was not restored, even if the profit rate briefly danced on air; it was a temporary fix to a permanent contradiction.

The current catastrophe is a rare creature, to be sure. But it is not a black swan; it is a zombie. It is the last crisis come calling, and the one before that and before that again—not just returned but fortified by the intervening years and the deferral of a reckoning. This crisis that keeps returning, now dressed in finery, now in rags, is evidently not a monster sprung from one particular deviation. Global crisis is, increasingly, the unnatural natural state of modern capital. It will not be laid to rest by fiddling with the alignment of parts, much less returning to a previous mode—these parts, these modes, are what set it shambling forward, hungry, blindly grasping, in the first place.

Joshua Clover, April 25th Nation

And what rough beast,its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W.B. Yeats. The Second Coming

Many members of every class

Donal — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:27:13 +0000

In reply to I was not referring to

Many members of every class switched to the repubs out of racism, or morality politics. I still don't buy the argument that the middle class is more culpable than anyone else.

I'm the working poor. Soon to

cmaukonen — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:00:47 +0000

In reply to This makes it look like

I'm the working poor. Soon to become the non-working retired poorer.

This makes it look like

wabby — Mon, 02 May 2011 23:55:36 +0000

In reply to What is middle

This makes it look like everybody thinks of themselves as middle class!

Stupid reality.

What is middle

EmmaZahn — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:46:21 +0000

In reply to Wither the Middle Class

What is middle class?

From Rich Man, Poor Man | Mother Jones: — By Kevin Drum| Wed Apr. 27, 2011 9:15 AM PDT

"Everyone thinks they're middle class. This isn't a big surprise: the word 'rich' has specific connotations (servants, mansions on the Gold Coast, 200-foot yachts, etc.) and even someone making $200-300 thousand a year probably doesn't have any of that stuff. What's more, most people in that income range were likely raised middle class, so culturally they still think of themselves that way even if their incomes give them a pretty comfortable lifestyle."

Researchers surveyed 1,100 households in Buenos Aires and asked them a purely objective question: what decile do you think your income puts you in? The bottom decile means you're part of the poorest 10%, the fifth decile means you're right in the middle, and the tenth decile means you're part of the richest 10%. Here's how things shook out:

Fascinating! The very poorest thought they were actually in the fourth decile — just barely below average. The very richest thought they were in the sixth decile — just barely above average."

Being Middle Class or even

cmaukonen — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:54:20 +0000

In reply to Wither the Middle Class

Being Middle Class or even calling one's self Liberal and voting for Democrats does not a lefty make.

In my own family there were those who voted democrat and call themselves liberals who were some of the worst race and class bigots I have known.

A lot of Middle Class whites left the democratic party over civil rights and Vietnam and what they saw as entitlements. Especially if those entitlements were meant for poor minorities.

No, many members of the

cmaukonen — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:03:00 +0000

In reply to I was not referring to

No, many members of the middle class switched to the repubs out of racism and out of a deeply felt sense of entitlement; they had worked hard, they had won the war.....

Entitlement and privilege. The old feudal order. Which belongs on the trash heap of history.

I was not referring to

Richard Day — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:56:00 +0000

In reply to The working class also voted

I was not referring to liberals. I grew up in an all white middle class suburb.

No, many members of the middle class switched to the repubs out of racism and out of a deeply felt sense of entitlement; they had worked hard, they had won the war.....

Because pleasure is the point

Michael Maiello — Mon, 02 May 2011 19:45:41 +0000

In reply to Wither the Middle Class

Because pleasure is the point of life and most people can only imagine middle class pleasures for the masses.

I say they're not ambitious enough. Let's fool them all and throw in our lot with the Hiltons.