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Prepare Which Way?
A central tenet driving environmentalism is that we should leave
the world better than we found it. As we think about reviving our
stumbling economy, the same principle should apply — if we simply
restore the economy to its pre-crisis footing, we have not only missed
the opportunity for more sweeping reforms but paved the way for future
crises by failing to address the fundamental failings that caused this
one.
Poor people will continue to be poor, with staggering
rates of homelessness and hunger. Urban communities of color will
still suffer underinvestment and anemic opportunity. Middle class
white families will see tuition and healthcare costs rise as retirement
savings fall. We will all put down payments on our dreams with rising
levels of debt. And the extremely privileged and powerful among us
will further segregate themselves economically and politically from the
effects of their greed.
After all, this was the state of our
economy well before the words “financial crisis” were ever uttered.
One in ten Americans living below the poverty line, women earning 20%
less than what men earn, over a third of African American men either
unemployed or incarcerated, 12 million hardworking immigrants without a
path to citizenship, 42 million Americans without health insurance and
millions more who can’t afford the insurance they have — none of this
was a crisis. Only when the underlying economic inequalities of our
system finally bubbled up to pull at the pockets of the privileged did
we finally acknowledge we have a problem.
Inequality is at the
root of this economic crisis. Only by fixing inequality can we fix our
economy and make America work for everyone. This requires a
multi-layered strategy, not only passing policies to stabilize and
re-regulate Wall Street at the top, and expand unemployment benefits
and create new, green jobs for workers at the middle of our economy who
have recently lost their jobs, but also creating a spectrum of programs
to help poor families, new immigrants and others at the bottom of our
economy. Just as FDR’s first New Deal set of reforms was followed by a
more transformative (though often less noted) Second New Deal that
established the Works Progress Administration, Social Security and the
minimum wage, the valuable economic reforms of the Obama Administration
thus far must be followed by not just by more stimulus but a “shock to
the core”. As President Obama himself has said, “Let's not only
provide a jump-start to the economy and immediately create or save
three million jobs. Let's also put a down payment on some of the
structural problems that we have in our economy."
A next-step agenda to address the inequality in our economic system must include:
• Comprehensive immigration reform that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented workers and prevents race-to-the-bottom worker exploitation;
• Significant investment to address racial disparities in our health care system and ensure that communities of color have equal access to quality, affordable care;
• An easing of obstacles to collective bargaining, such as proposed by the Employee Free Choice Act, to balance the power of workers and hold corporations accountable;
• A renewed national commitment to full employment, this time with teeth: a guarantee of a living wage job to everyone who wants and needs one;
• Expanded options for economic opportunity, including new forms of public-private industry, community-owned and worker-owned local businesses, and more democratic governance of corporations.
Just like no amount of
recycling can make up for deeper problems of coal burning power plants
and carbon emissions that are eating up our planet, no amount of tax
breaks or even additional short-term spending will make up for the
deeper problems in our economy. If we fail to seize this moment of
crisis to solve the fundamental inequalities embedded in our economy,
our children and our children’s children will continue to stumble and
struggle. We will go down in history not as the generation who
confronted this crisis and put our nation and world on a new and better
path to justice but those who stood idly by as the wheels of the status
quo steadily ground us down.
18 Comments so far
Show AllThere can and will never be equality under a capitalist system. The solutions proposed here are the status quo the authors attempt to denounce.
Ditto.
The economy demands we ramp up good paying jobs for MILLIONS
The environment, energy constraints, resource constraints, demand that we drastically ramp DOWN
From here on out its a global game of musical chair$ and the loosers get to DIE. (its happening already)
Pretty bleak huh?
Bleak? Yes from a global perspective. But there probably will be pockets of joy here and there and now and then, like for example the wedding celebration parties one hears about in the middle east. Think of the fun of gathering and romping with your friends and family in a beautiful desolate desert setting; a brief getaway from all the problems of the world.
Of course, until a Preadtor drone operator mistakes your wedding party for a militant training camp and launches hellfire missiles into it...
Too Debbie Downer?
kohn/bhargava: If we fail to seize this moment of crisis to solve the fundamental inequalities embedded in our economy, our children and our children’s children will continue to stumble and struggle.
unless your children and your children's children are willing or able to learn about living in a self-sustaining way, i.e. horse and buggy days and gardening and quite possibly learning to crawl out of a cave, there's really no reason to be writing about all the other points of useless discussion in this article.
it's called energy depletion and the powers that be already know this and are doing everything they can - in the mad race to the sad end - to stockpile the billions of dollars that they foolishly believe will buy their salvation. as souperman2 points out, we're all losers and we're all going to die.
I would like to disagree, in a friendly way of course, with your assertion that it would be foolish of the elites "to stockpile the billions of dollars" to "buy their salvation." I believe the elite corporatists can be viewed as heartless, ruthless, murderous, and even "evil" from a progressive perspective, but I cannot go along with "foolish." They are hoarding and stockpiling the resources, as you say, but it is not necessarily self-defeating if they can manage to pull it off, which they just might. There are enough resources for one tenth of one percent of the population to live well for centuries, and even with virtually uncontrolled global warming, there will be enough room in habitable climes for a decent quality of life for that one tenth of one percent.
With advanced military and police technology, a small protective force, probably less than one percent of the population, could be used to provide security for that one tenth of one percent, and with advancing technology in robotics, only a small labor force would be required, probably less than another one percent. And that less than two percent would welcome the opportunity to avoid the slavery, misery, poverty, sickness, and death of the great majority, so that they would likely accept small rations of available resources, allowing that elite one tenth of one percent the lion's share.
To me, the upcoming environmental calamities, the dwindling resources, and the continuing advances in military, computer, and robotic technology serve to make it more likely a small super-elite will attempt to establish total control over the financial system, governments, and economies of the world in the coming years. And from what I have seen in the past couple of decades, I am afraid they may succeed (they sure appear to be succeeding now).
Probably, with a collapsed technical infrastructure, the future world environment will be radioactive to the point that successuful reproduction of our species will be problematic, and we will stay dead.
Seven billion consumers living/dying on subsistence wages on a polluted planet. More war. Don't worry, be happy. How do you prevent a race to the bottom when there is an unending supply of disposable workers? What social reform is going to change this?
Right, Souperman.
And the extremely privileged and powerful among us will further segregate themselves economically and politically from the effects of their greed. Barack Obama and his family indluded.
Let's see... single-payer healthcare and education, ending nafta, reinstating and/or enforcing regulations.... oh Dennis Kucinich how you are mocked and ignored.
as if we could view goverment as community concensus and collective barganing rather than employers... less protecting our, or rather corporate, rights and more a tool to manage our community.
Obama can be different... if the Progressive Caucus is empowered.
From now on, let's just all respond with "Please read Shock Doctrine". The solutions pitched by the authors are the same old standard solutions, and I agree with all of them. BUT, the authors don't seem to realize that the "current crisis" isn't some exception. Things are according to plan, starting with Reagan (at least in the US).
kivals, it might have been foolish of me to use the word “foolish” while describing lifestyles of the rich. maybe not. time certainly will tell.
granted, the rich bitches and bastards will be in need of protection, as they are even today. however, i will disagree, in a friendly way as well, that the advancement of military and police technology will only go on for a short time into the future, as long as these industries are able to hoard their lion’s share of energy rationing.
regarding your statement that a small segment of super-elite will attempt to take control of the world as we know it, don’t you think that this plan is already underway and that they have been and currently are and will continue to create and produce and distribute the limitations on the masses of society so that they may achieve their goal(s) with as little resistance as possible? the one thing, the one single most important thing in all of this is that the super-elite and the super rich are really a rather incompetent lot when it comes to self-sufficiency. therein lies our power.
in my world, i can only hope that the environmental calamities and the dwindling resources will occur faster than the advances in technology. and therein lies my power.
You wrote: "...don’t you think that this plan is already underway and that they have been and currently are and will continue to create and produce and distribute the limitations on the masses of society so that they may achieve their goal(s) with as little resistance as possible?"
Yes, we agree on that, as that was the point of my parenthetical in my closing statement. I hope you are right about the incompetence. The allure of decadence to the comfortable and secure is powerful and almost ensures loss of competence over time. Also, the mighty rarely fail to succumb to hubris. I just worry that an accelerating pace of technological development may more than counterbalance the diminishment of resources and the historical factors working against the elites accumulating sufficient power to achieve total and lasting domination.
yes, kivals. i spend many hours, high upon a hill, or upon a high hill, thinking about this mad race. i do believe the world is out of control and as we keep spinning we’ll find the weak being siphoned out of existence while the rich lay claim to the goods left behind.
it’s all part of a master plan, going back decades. now, once-overinflated properties are being scarfed up at bargain basement prices. anyone who fails to see the big picture is in trouble.
what a blood bath it’s all shaping up to be.
"i spend many hours, high upon a hill, or upon a high hill, thinking about this mad race..."
Clever. CD is one of the higher hills around, but not so high that one would suffer from hypoxia, as one might at some other sites, and lose one's way.
Sioux Rose
It's been a long day "gang," but there are definitely OTHER possibilities besides the bleak one you seem to be agreeing upon in which the "elite winners take all." Think of Lina Wurtmueller's version of "Swept Away." The rich can of course hire help but with all the in-breeding in recent generations, their creativity is vastly limited. I'd call it the spiritual version of "Hemophilia." (Isn't that the name of the disease where the blood doesn't clot; and it specifically impacted royalty in Europe several centuries ago?)
I had a related discussion with a scientific-oriented friend regarding survival of the fittest. I said sometimes it's really a matter of luck. One animal may be more fit, but happens to be grazing just when lightning hits the tree that takes it down. So his weaker buddy gets to mate and reproduce. Atheists may see earth's future ONLY in terms of what people do, but for us mystics, that's an unduly limited context! I'm too tired tonight to elaborate further.
First, the corporate mentality does not reflect or admit upon their own mistakes. Ignore and deflect responsibility for failures.
Second, the capitalists/corporate model has no motivation to change. Profits are great the way it is.
The "change we can believe in" is only a dream.