Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Pa and Mi had a 500% increase in third party voters. That is why Hillary is not president.

As another example in NY Johnson and Stein got 90,000 votes in 2012. They combined for 290,000 in 2016. The difference is that NY was blue enough to cover for the addled brainers.

We were apparently not blue enough. But it wasn't "Joe Sixpack." It was people who saw the two real candidates as effectively the same.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I feel like I've endorsed this post about 200 times. Truth.

Why doesn't Sebby get it yet? How thick is he? The people who got us Trump are the one's who bitch and moan about "both parties" and protest votes and such. Yes, Sebby, your vote matters, even when you throw it away.

Anyway, preach brother.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

First, thanks for the long, thoughtful response.

Yes, when pushed, you acknowledge that the rich use government to serve their self-interest. You don't seem to get that this undercuts the argument (which you described and seem to believe) that the poor should not be allowed to use government to serve their self-interest. The implication here -- and it's a fiction -- is that the rich use their control over the government in a neutral, selfless way that the poor would corrupt. "We can't let the poor into the club -- they'll eat all the pie." That pie is getting eaten already, and what we're talking about is who gets to eat it, not whether there will be any left.

That's bullshit. There's a lot of irrationality among rich and poor alike, but ordinary people are not that hard to figure out. They want ordinary things, like jobs and schools and roads and healthcare and a local sportsball team that wins more than average.

Alas, we have a two-party system that often lacks good solutions to hard problems. The Republicans are so committed to cutting taxes that they cannot offer solutions to problems which involve spending money, which is most of them. The Democrats often lack the courage of their convictions, and often struggle to propose solutions that will make a difference to ordinary people. Also, the nature of our government makes it hard to get things done, and people get frustrated with that.

There is no alternative. What you just described is a transfer. My point is what you are attributing to democracy (transfers) is not an attribute of democracy per se, but an attribute of all government. The earliest civilizations in what is now Iraq involved a lot of poor farmers and a small ruling class that grew rich taking a share of what the farmers grew. Plus ca change, plus le meme chose.

I don't think it needs to be turned upside down. I think our government is pretty excellent, in a world historical sense. Most of the time, it succeeds in resolving disputes between people without violence or oppression. (Cue Adder.) Also, it does pretty well (in a comparative sense) at enabling innovation. How many dominant European (or Japanese, or Chinese) tech companies do you see? But I do think it needs to be reformed. A government that was fairer and more egalitarian would be even better at these things. The problem, of course, is that some people are threatened by these things and want to block them (#maga).

No. What I have been saying is that the state inevitably administers transfers. As surely as night follows day, the state will do things that involve transfers. When it collects money to build a road or a school, the effects are not spread evenly. What we can hope is that the transfers are integral to state activity that fosters innovation and growth, and are not just rent-seeking (what you are concerned about with rentier capitalism). I do not think any transfer is good per se. I also do not think that pointing out that a government action involves a transfer is necessarily a reason to reject it.

It's an interesting suggestion, but that's not what you think, because there are many other things the government does that you like, like national defense, primary education, building roads, regulating financial markets, and fighting infectious diseases. Et cetera. I think some kind of universal income is a good idea, but it is not a panacea.

You are significantly changing your tune, while pretending to be reading from the same music. Even so, what you are saying is still nonsense. Just to make this more concrete, late-18th century France and England were both monarchies in which the government served the interests of a relatively small number of people who exploited everyone else. France went bankrupt, and more, and England did not, and slowly expanded the franchise.

Dude, I am responding to your argument that the poor cannot be allowed to have a voice in government that will let them advance their own interests. My point is, if they don't, everyone else will exploit them. How do you "stop the rich" other than by letting others share government power? Noblesse oblige was tried, and it didn't work. A nice theory, but the rich found too much upside in exploiting everyone else.

Agreed. (I think you're saying, we could save the banks without saving their investors.)

This is such nonsense. The government is spending that money because, for the most part, people want it spent. I personally don't believe that we need to spend as much on defense as we do. But no one gets elected to Congress on a platform of radically cutting defense spending. No one.

I disagree. Compare what happened under Obama and what is happening under Trump. The differences are real. Healthcare reform (for example) made a real difference to people. Having a black President made a real difference to people. In both directions -- Trump got elected, at least in part, because so many people were threatened by both. IMO, Trump is not going to reverse the long-term trend that the government is more egalitarian and more representative, though he's doing his worst.

I think you are truly schizophrenic on this issue, and that often leads you to climb to such a high altitude that you can say things like "The system always reverts to the default setting: Doing what the moneyed want it to do." so that you can avoid reconciling the contradictions.

Come back to Earth, Sebby. You've climbed so high here that we're losing your signal -- it's just all incoherent.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

They also want people they think are less deserving not to get those things, or things that they perceive themselves either to be paying for or not getting. Note that is is unrelated to whether they actually are paying for or getting those things.

In a world historical sense, I do not disagree. But yeah, we're still arresting black men who racist white ladies don't want in their store, so...

I actually don't agree. Or, mostly, I do not think it was possible, even if preferable. No one had the authority to impose the nationalization of a huge chunk of the financial system, nor were there ever going to be enough votes available in congress. Even if congress could eventually have been convinced to act, you cannot afford to wait in the face of a bank run. With the tools available at the time, there was no realistic other choice.

The good news is that we've put in place the right tools for next time. Oh. Wait.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I think what you are trying to say is that there are people who have benefited from implicit white, male cultural hegemony and who do not want to give that up. Equality is controversial, because there are a lot of people who really like inequality because it benefits them.

Yes, I agree.

In specific instances, it was possible and the government did it. What I don't think the government appreciated at the time was the value in being clear that they were screwing the investors. AIG is an example. Taxpayers took an 80% share and made a $23 billion profit. The Obama Administration often figured that good governance would speak for itself, but that turns out to have been bad politics.

And, in other cases, the government bailed out investors while middle-class homeowners took the hits.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

While this may be true, the bigger problem is that people don't even see inequality. If I hear, "But I worked hard for what I have," from some jackass who went to private school, came from money, was given internships and starter jobs through daddy's connections, traveled the world, was a legacy at every school he ever went to, was given his first car plus the down payment on their house and didn't pay for their wedding, and who married into even more money, getting me the fuck out of your local Starbucks is going to be the least of your problems.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Those people see inequality -- i.e., their relative status -- and think it's the way things should be. "Inequality" is understood as unfairness, so they won't call it inequality, because that is a pejorative term. They think they deserve the advantages they have, and are threatened by moves to equality.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

But . . . I really did work hard for what I have.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Yes. We are saying the same thing.

TM

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Matt Yglesias has a somewhat related point that seems pretty sharp:

Those are three successive tweets from April 17 which I just saw.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

We need a "rate this post positively" button.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

You're missing my argument. There was a time when noblesse oblige worked. I could cite endless examples of past advantaged sorts who followed the rule, "don't be a pig and wreck a good thing." Investment bank partnerships of old come to mind.

But those days are long gone. And if we want to talk about whose dick is most prominently inserted in the poor's ass, the upper middle class and affluent-but-not-rich are the real culprits I see. The rich can pay greater taxes. It's the aspirant affluent who refuse to cough an extra $3k of their $600k salary because they want to use that money to put Mackenzie Childs doorknobs through the first floor, a liposuction tune-up, or bring the nanny along on summer vacation.

Older generations did follow a "don't wreck the place" rule. Sure, you had Fricks and Rockefellers who plundered the environment and abused workers. But you also had Henry Fords (loathsome bigoted views aside) who realized the best way to sell the most cars was to allow workers to earn enough to afford them.

If you had immigrant grandparents who did alright here and were thankful for the opportunity, they probably drilled it into your head: "Treat people fairly, and don't draw attention to yourself." You hear anyone following that rule today?

What you've just described is an incurious and narrowly focused person. You are correct - the rich are often just as clueless. But never the whole household. There's always at least one person in a rich household who took advantage of educational opportunities and grasps complex issues from numerous angles. This is usually the brother or sister who runs the family business, or manages the family funds, while the rest of the kids sell real estate, broker antiques, or tinker on their horse farm.

The poor are often too harried by life, trying to simply survive, to avail themselves of educational opportunities which would give them a better grasp of the issues. Hence, they acquire the narrow view you describe.

Again, the worst class are the non-earning members of the newly affluent. The spouses and children of docs, lawyers, small business owners... These people are often amazingly, shockingly incurious. And dull as all fuck.

2.

I have never bought the argument there is always an elite that exploits everything. I think the post-war boom in this country (yes, possibly a non-reproducible aberration, for a number of reasons) demonstrated that a benign elite could simply manage things, and profit a decent bit more than everyone else, while delivering broad prosperity.

I think we need a full on revolution to stop an emerging class system that will destroy this country. You might call my affinity for the old notion of noblesse oblige classist, and perhaps it is. But that was a class system that benefited people more broadly. What we have to today is a vicious, stagnant system that makes it near impossible for talented people of modest means to reach the higher levels. This undoes the whole idea of the American Experiment.

We've allowed the merchant class to morph into a rentier class. These people know no bounds. They are your Mnuchins, your Pruitts, your [Insert everybody on Wall Street in 2008]. They're blunt, thoughtless elitists. Nihilists, really. You don't get rid of these people, or their corrosive mindsets, with government policy giving the poor more power. You get rid of them with Great Depression level crisis that shocks some decency out of politicians and business people alike. You need an extreme event the forces politicians to elevate their sense of decency over their careers and say, "Wait minute. This is not America anymore. We need to stop this. We can't destroy the environment, create massive underclasses like Brazil, run a budget indistinguishable from that of a Banana Republic, and worship consumption. this degenerate behavior does not work."

I view this as a flaw rather than a feature at the moment. The system is precluding necessary radical change.

I agree with the first half. As to the second, I don't. I think we need a political civil war. We need a giant reset.

We're going to get it one way or another. 2008 is not over. Not by any stretch.

I never said I didn't want those things. I was unclear, so I'll be clear here. When I said, "Here's money, you're on your own," I meant, "The state will continue to provide the basic necessities to qualify as a state," which include most of your list (I'd eliminate a few).

Our form of noblesse oblige worked. But it's long gone. Now we just have a Gatsbian mess.

They need to learn the lesson that comes with going too far. You think that can be delivered via the ballot box. I think we need a crisis, and one where investors are savaged, and labor's value increases radically in relation to capital's.

Exactly.

You can't always get what you want. And if you try sometimes, you should get only what we can afford.

(This version was rejected by Keith.)

I want a pony.

Trump demonstrates my point about ordinary people being seriously uninformed. (Cue Hank telling me this applies to me. I'll pre-empt that: Hank, the horse has been dead for about a month now. Put down the stick.)

I think letting any one sector acquire too much power, particularly in regard to transfers, puts a nation on a road to bankruptcy. Those who need money from the govt do it by sacking the treasury. Those who want to avoid paying money to the govt do it by sapping the Treasury of funds to pay fixed obligations.

It's ultimately all of the classes working together to demand too much. A pincer effect where the rich create rules allowing them to avoid paying money to support the lower classes and the lower classes demand increasing benefits. The govt is left with no choice but to borrow.

Touche. I went for the grand finish there. I don't even know wtf I was saying as I read it now.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

I'm not sure the advantaged feel that way. I hear that most from modestly middle class whites. They seem to think they're entitled to transfers from the state, but immigrants and people from other cultures are not.

How'd we effectively nationalize AIG if we didn't have the authority to do so? Shit, AIG was an insurer. We trampled McCarran Ferguson to do that, no?

And we didn't have to nationalize the banks. We could have thrown them into some special receivership as a condition of the bailout. The 2008 crisis was an "ask forgiveness later rather than permission now" moment. We could have done anything we wanted, and creaming investors who deserved to lose along with the incompetents who ran those banks would have helped the bailout go through Congress. It would have sailed through on one vote rather than the two it ultimately required.

And we could have paid the Goldman pricks .10 on the dollar on their AIG CDOs, rather than the .80 they received. That was fucking criminal.

What fails needs to be left to fail or go through bankruptcy. The investors in those banks deserved to lose everything they'd invested in them. Saving their asses was an outrageous act of political favoritism. And a consequence is the cynicism you see today, manifesting itself in Trump and populism.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

They see it. They don't like to acknowledge it. They forget that working hard is easy. It's getting into the game that's hard. And it's hard because, like any concert you've been to in the past decade or so, the really good tickets are already sold to a pile of well heeled corporate insiders. Or maybe an IPO is a better example. All the early placements are already handed out to the preferred, already affluent clients. Joe Sixpack ain't getting in on Facebook early. He has to wait for the first dip to get a taste.

Nobody tells the non-connected kids life is a giant business development enterprise, and having an already deep Rolodex is worth 15 years of hard work. (And that one lucky break - meeting that life changing business connection at a party, or getting that $$$$$$$ case referral - is worth 30 years of hard work.)

"It's random, hard work guarantees little, acumen is cheap, and who you know is paramount... Hope you picked your parents well," doesn't appear in any self help literature. But that's only because we're a full of shit culture that worships Horatio Alger myths, and pretends the Actual Rules don't apply.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

first, the UAW still had to get their heards' busted by Ford goons to get workers decent work conditions. but he at least least paid decent wages and benefited because more people could buy cars, although he also dropped the price so that normal people could afford a car.

and other than the depression it worked. the UAW kept demanding a bigger share, but that, in combination with Americans in steel and electronics and everything else still resulted in a middle class getting bigger. But at some point it become vulnerable, because it relied upon Americans buying American.

By the late 70s american cars were for shit, and Japan blew the whole charade up because they sold for much less. And at some point the PA steelworker and Cali electronics worker bought a Datsun. And then UAW workers realized Japan made decent TVs.

And pretty soon, for a US manufacturer to sell stuff they had to lower costs- they beat up their workers, and moved stuff to Mexico. Take a look at what happened to wages when GM spun off Delphi.

And all the FB memes about how Reagan's tax cuts killed the middle class miss that the above happened at the same time. Of course manufacturers choose very low price foreign labor; their consumers won't buy their products otherwise. Henry Ford's workers knew better than to force such a result.