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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGlobalization, trade deals, and immigration is not what's killing the middle class
in either the US or the UK. People are conflating the two. What is killing the middle class is their reluctance to vote for politicians, across the board, that will invest in the American people. It's voting for Republicans here like Brownback and Cameron in the UK who push massive austerity programs which rob the middle class of vital benefits like education and healthcare.
There's this myth that factory jobs create a middle class, and that is just wrong. Even if we brought back every factory job in the world back to the US, the middle class would be in the same condition that it's currently in. Those factories would still have to compete globally and that would mean that wages and benefits would have to reflect the global markets. Additionally, environmental regulations would have to be relaxed as well.
For example, Carrier air conditioning has to compete with Korean and Chinese manufacturers for market share. Forcing them to operate entirely in the US would mean they'd either have to cut wages or go out of business.
The answer to rebuilding the middle class is not shutting yourself off from the world. The answer is to vote for pols on state and federal levels that will spend money on education, infrastructure, research, etc. Borwnback is doing more to destroy the middle class than China could ever do.
randome
(34,845 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)I think it is the politicians job to do what is right for the country, that is why we elect them, to do the right thing for the country. I am not buying any argument that lets any of them off the hook for their complicity in this ongoing misrule.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)What is this crap? Are we fair game for politicians? Is that the deal here? If it is, I want them to run on it.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Which is why FDR and LBJ are fading away into the Democratic past as increasingly Leftist Ideologues, something to avoid at all costs. Behind the guise of "technocrat" is a corporate ideology where democracy is seen as a pain in the ass.
The Porfirio Diaz regime in Mexico over a century ago was called a "technocratic" era. But the railroads ran south to north.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)however much lipstick they want to put on the pig.
I would not let specialists of any sort run things, they tend to be like the litte boy with a hammer, who thinks lots of things look like nails.
villager
(26,001 posts)It's for our own good, after all.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)When they say "It's for our own good", they mean them, not us. And boy do they make that clear when we object.
villager
(26,001 posts)sufrommich
(22,871 posts)I agree with your OP,Americans make their own choices in politics and buying options.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)They voted for steep austerity measures. That's the source of their pain. Not the Polish plumber.
larkrake
(1,674 posts)I disagree with globalization, trade deals. If we tariffed incoming, costs would level and we could start making things again. As it is we are justifying slave labor, and allowing corporations to profit without giving back to the country.
The middle class has no future in globalization, it just makes us all poor and answerable to corporate whims, dissolves sovereignty and builds inequality.
Yes our national problem is apathy and voting single issues, corruption on a grand scale and NOT voting for candidates who will address all major issues. All too often voters vote "me" and not "we"
denverbill
(11,489 posts)Tariffs financed a big part of our govt for 200 years until the free-traders decided American jobs weren't worth protecting.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)You would just make products much more expensive and hurt companies from selling abroad. The larger issue is that you're conflating trade with a middle class standard of living which is false. The middle class in America is declining because of poor decisions regarding taxes, health care, education, infrastructure, etc. by our state and federal governments.
Just because you have factories and tariffs, you're not helping the middle class.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)That increases competition and enterpreneurship.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)and makes all products cost more.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Yavin4
(35,446 posts)Would we have the cars that we have today?
bemildred
(90,061 posts)Yavin4
(35,446 posts)If someone develops tech that removes carbon overseas, they won't be able to sell it here.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)It is not enough to not burn it directly, you can't burn it in manufacture either, and it is going to take lots of power to do that job.
On the other hand, biological methods, carbon eating bugs, methane eaters for example, those you could do things with ...
We need something exponential to deal with our carbon problem.
arcane1
(38,613 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)Abstractions and factoids larded with insults for all and sundry that disagree.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)..."you're conflating trade with a middle class standard of living which is false".
And yet you seem to be promoting trade deals.
So if trade has nothingto do with a middle class standard of living, why promote these trade deals at all?
You can't have it both ways. And in any case, global trade existed long before these multi-nation trade deals came about. All these modern trade deals do is codify rules that benefit the big global corporations, with minimal protections for workers and the environment.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)From a consumer point of view, that benefits the middle class.
ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...you're conflating trade with a middle class standard of living. Not sure why you felt the need to correct another poster on that basis.
pampango
(24,692 posts)government could be funded by progressive income taxes rather than tariffs that the working class paid for.
The Hidden Progressive History of Income Tax
Our ancestors knew this was not true. The income tax was the most popular economic justice movement of the late 19th and early 20th century. This truly grassroots movement forced politicians to act in order to stay in office, leading to the 16th Amendment to the Constitution in 1913. Thats right, the income tax was so popular that the nation passed a constitutional amendment so that the right-wing Supreme Court couldnt overturn it.
Income and Tax Inequality in the Late 19th Century
Everyday Americans hated the tax system of the Gilded Age. The federal government gathered taxes in two ways. First, it placed high tariff rates on imports. These import taxes protected American industries from competition. This allowed companies to charge high prices on products that the working class needed to survive while also protecting the monopolies that controlled their everyday lives. Second, the government had high excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol, two products used heavily by the American working class.
These forms of indirect taxes meant that almost the entirety of federal tax revenue came from the poor while the rich paid virtually nothing. This spawned enormous outrage. The poor had a model in creating an income taxPresident Abraham Lincoln, who instituted the nations first income tax to pay for the Civil War. Lincolns Revenue Act of 1861 created a graduated tax on everyone who made at least $800 a year, allowing him to pay for the war. Although a grand success, Republicans pulled away from it as they backed off of racial equality in the late 1860s and it was overturned in 1872.
Progressives need to reclaim income tax rates as an organizing issue. We need to press for an aggressive tax increase on the wealthy while lowering income taxes for those who cant afford to pay them. We should also call for vigorous prosecution of tax cheats, the closing of tax loopholes, and a series of government programs directly paid for by the income taxes from the wealthy. This is a tall order in the face of the current anti-tax mentality. But until we reclaim the mantle of progressive taxation, we wont have access to a primary tool to create a more just and equitable society.
http://www.alternet.org/labor/hidden-progressive-history-income-tax?akid=9361.277129.2KDGDd&rd=1&src=newsletter706781&t=14
pampango
(24,692 posts)The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)Each and every issue plays a part somewhere in the equation. It's globalization, trade deals, immigration, voting for this or that politician, increasing automation, environmental regulations, no environmental regulations, population size, demographics, history, expectations, geography, etc. Trying to pick any one out specifically is just about political agendas. It's what any given person doesn't happen to like, but we live in a reality produced by doing the things that people have both liked and not liked, on all sides. There's no one answer to it. If you pull one thread, the whole shirt is connected.
Why would education cancel out having to compete globally? Education doesn't get you what it used to. There's no escape on a finite planet.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)A middle class is created, by and large, by government.
The2ndWheel
(7,947 posts)is a short term phenomenon that's dependent on a certain context to exist. Now, we have 7+ billion people, all of whom deserve at least an opportunity for a better life as that's the only fair thing to do. However, they're all competing against each other globally, and with the added pressure of increasing automation, making each person that much less needed.
At every turn, there's more and more pressure around a given person's life. It's coming from the top down, from the bottom up, and from all 360 degrees, both vertically and horizontally.
The part that gets tricky for humans is that we believe, or at least want to believe, in fairness. We don't, or don't want to, let people just die. We don't, or don't want to, let people slip through the cracks. That's how we end up with a full world though. That's part of the human experiment deal. When you try to take it upon yourself to attempt to control every factor, every variable, in whatever it is that we call nature, you then have to factor in every variable. Not just in the human world either. We have to care about the polar bear. And the elephant. And the spider. And the lion. And the alligator. And the coyote. And the tree. And the fish. And the ocean in general. And the land. And the air. And the climate. And the planet itself. Can't just pick and choose. Which is extremely difficult to do. That's the downside to the immense upside of trying to do it.
Surya Gayatri
(15,445 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)We should instead focus on one thing and one thing only, preferably something that will keep us distracted from the main problem.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)as the lift the rest of the world to our standards. Where these trade deals hurt us is the fact that lower ourselves to their standards.
GummyBearz
(2,931 posts)You think we could have free trade agreements with countries that allow their corporations to pay a child a dollar a day to build a product, and that won't affect people here that used to build that same product? Wow... you are every union's worst nightmare
bvar22
(39,909 posts)<snip>
"One problem with trade and investment deals, especially with lower-wage countries like South Korea and China, is that they often result in growing trade deficits and job losses. In 2011, President Obama claimed that the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS) would support 70,000 American jobs because the agreement would increase exports of American goods by $10 billion to $11 billion.
Since KORUS took effect in 2012, exports to Korea have increased by less than $1 billion. Meanwhile, U.S. imports have surged more than $12 billion, resulting in a net loss of 75,000 U.S. jobs.
Similarly, Bill Clinton claimed that NAFTA would create 200,000 jobs in its first two years and a million jobs in five years. Instead, between 1993 (before NAFTA) and 2013, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Canada increased from $17 billion to $177.2 billion, displacing more than 850,000 U.S. jobs.
<read more FACTS here:>
http://www.newsweek.com/free-trade-costs-american-jobs-332962
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)Say we brought back EVERY mfg job in the world and have it here in the U.S. We impose tariffs and other barriers. How does that translate into a vibrant middle class?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)but to play YOUR game, if we had every manufacturing job in the World here in the USA, we would have a 100% share of the World Market in Manufactured products,
PLUS, there would be a Worker's Market in the competition for manufacturing jobs.
Wages and Benefits WOULD rise as employers were forced to compete for Workers.
#2: You dodges the FACTS in my post directly above yours.
The FACT is that, under the current conditions, the so called "Free Trade" agreements being negotiated by our NeoLiberal "leadership" with Slave Trade countries does indeed cost American Jobs.
#3: There is no such thing as Free Trade. It was a nice sounding phrase invented by the very RICH to:
*Lower American Wages
*Lower Benefits
*Bust UNIONS
*Avoid Environmental Regulations
"Free Trade" was sold to a naive America by a smooth talking con man. I remember when he said,
"Americans can compete with any worker in the World", what he meant was that American Workers WOULD BE COMPETING with Slave Labor for their jobs.
If we had a level playing field, we WOULD be competitive, but we don't have a level playing field.
#4: Capital will ALWAYS be able to outrun Human Rights, Workers Rights, and Environmental Regulation.
A Corporate Board can decide to move a factory in one meeting.
IT takes workers, Human Rights activists, and Environmental activists YEARS, sometimes DECADES to:
*Organize
*Petition pf governments for protections from Corporate Predation.
*Years MORE for those governments to react with effective legislation to provide these protections, if at all.
In that time, the Corporate predators have finished the raping and looting, found another bribable country and with a corrupt authoritarian government, promised them MILLIONS, packed up, and moved. Long Gone.
Let me repeat:
Capital (money) will ALWAYS outrun Human Rights and Environmental Protections.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)alarimer
(16,245 posts)Factory jobs DID create the middle class. I don't know what you are smoking, but that is just a fact. Good, union jobs created the middle class. Unions are on the decline in part because of "right-to-work" laws that exist in much of the US, but also because of globalization.
pampango
(24,692 posts)onto something. The world can be tied together with trade while unions and the middle class can flourish.
I agree with you Germany and Sweden do not have 'right-to-work'. That makes a huge difference. Neither do they have low/regressive taxes, runaway deregulation, shattered safety nets, etc. Therein lies the key.
Yavin4
(35,446 posts)Those same factory jobs made workers poor before the government intervened and forced companies to negotiate with labor and imposed regulations on corporations regarding a 40 hour work week, OT pay, and child labor.
Show me where it's written that factory jobs == middle class wages.