IF SENECA FELL IN THE
WOODS?
article 1 of 2 today
article 1 of 2 today
If a Seneca Cliff fell in
the woods and no one was there to hear it, did it make a sound? Did the middle class fall off a Seneca cliff
and nobody noticed it, not even the middle class? I would theorize that yes indeed, they
did. This is in and of itself
interesting, but it can also tell you that we can’t even notice our own
demise. All of us All Great Seeing
prognosticators argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (
debating what/how/when ) when we haven’t noticed the pin was sold to the
highest bidder and it is now private property AND the owner is a strict
religious fundamentalist so there is no damn dancing anyway ( cue up theme
music to “Footloose” ).
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We could argue over what
constitutes a middle class. I would
stipulate that rather than income, a better parameter would be closer to the
original, the class in the middle between peasants and rulers. The shop owners and tradesmen and such. Not born and kept into poverty, their
livelihood assuring them a bit more freedom.
Remember, the middle class is relatively recent. Most times, even skilled tradesmen were
slaves. A combination of population
decimation from the Black Plague and the necessity of allowing central bankers
to fund colonizing the bare assed savages ( so, in other words, the necessity
of freeing up a large portion of the economy.
The Dutch were far more successful at the colony game than say, the
Russians who clutched too tightly to the serf economy ).
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In this country, I’d say
the middle class was only allowed as a result of Unions and their brief rise to
power, as a backlash against the robber barons.
Not that the elite had much choice, since slaves and expensive machinery
do not mix well. It is little
coincidence that Unions were, mostly, a concession to the workers to avoid
sabotage, and lasted through our Industrial Age as it coincided with our
colonial conquests and occupations.
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Once the economy rapidly
changed, in one generation, from building to merely cashing in on the earlier
colonial gains, the elite now monetizing and manipulating derivatives of goods,
Unions ceased to meaningfully exist.
There was no more factories to trash as a means of coercion. And the middle class was, to a large extent,
Union. But the middle class didn’t die
with Unions. They hung in there until
recently. Then, in one ( perhaps )
engineered financial crash, the middle class lost their house equity ( it “magically”
reappeared after about five years, only now with the true unemployment of a
third, there is no one to buy the homes at the increased perceived values. It just made the property tax go up ) and
their pensions.
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They don’t think they’ve
lost the only savings they ever had, but since the savings were a hallucination
anyway, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.
For a time, it was true that you could make a killing on real
estate. This helped the elite, this
artificial increase in home costs. The
bankers got more interest on higher loans, the locals got more taxes so the
ever after increased revenues from rising property values and unchecked
immigration gave them the illusion they could offer a lot of unnecessary workers
pensions. The perceived “free” profits
on merely just getting into debt for a mortgage was in some places the majority
of economic activity as construction goosed the economically once doomed area.
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Unions ( by and large )
allowed for a prosperous middle class ( which was-again, by and large-fed by
defense Cold War spending ). There was
free college, affordable housing, transportation and medical. That all ended the day the empire was
defeated in Vietnam. From then on, the
middle class hung in there, but always with depleting assets and drops in their
wages and diminishing returns. The wife
went to work, but that was largely later negated by the 50% divorce rate, so
the household went back to one worker incomes-now households were two people
working with the divorced male brings in a quarter of the pay, and the female
getting a quarter the pay from her ex and both their jobs earning a quarter of
what they once did.
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Then, the middle class
kept their lifestyles by taking on huge amounts of debt. Did you know the pre-Great Depression
mortgage was only five years? Or that a
car loan of two years used to be considered irresponsible? How times of peonage have changed. How can a couple be considered middle class
when they have a literal lifetime of debt?
They are no more free than the peasants.
But let’s just say that for now, the definition of middle class was
having a trade you could bargain with.
Since the definition was no longer the protection and return from being
Unionized ( blow me, Ayn Rand disciple pukes.
Without police and the right to carry a weapon, women would be freely
molested. Without Unions, workers are
financially raped ).
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Workers had a skill, even
if now that skill took on a home mortgage length amount of debt to
acquire. At least the worker had
bargaining power of a sort, able to move about the country to maximize his
wages. He wasn’t helpless like the
factory worker was ( before effective Unionization-which ended along with the
factory economy. The Unions turned to
graft to survive and then it was easy to control them. Kind of like the NRA now ). But that is no longer the case, is it? Unemployment is now so bad that workers are
stuck in place. That non-equity home
didn’t help. As businesses now are free
to roam around the country, or globe, workers have essentially zero bargaining
power anymore. They have lost income,
purchasing power, freedom of mobility, the freedom to avoid debt-all that and
more. What still makes them middle
class? All these factors have been around
for fifty years. What was the Seneca
Cliff? Continued tomorrow.
END ( today's related link http://amzn.to/2FzmHFD )
* By the by, all my writing is copyrighted. For the obtuse out there
Religious fundamentalists who forbid dancing, do so from a "slippery slope" argument. Nowhere in the Bible does it prohibit dancing, by example it is allowed. Dancing can become a sin when it simulates sex acts or foreplay where others can observe it. Arguably that would be okay between husband/wife in private. So they protect themselves by forbidding all dancing, when in reality they should just exercise self control and choose companions that also exercise self control. The same that prohibit dancing generally prohibit alcohol consumption. There is nothing inherently wrong with alcohol consumption, but we all know it could lead to drunkenness and possibly alcoholism. Again, it would be better to exercise self control and choose companions who exercise self control rather than prohibit something that is allowed.
ReplyDeletePeace out
However, don't forget cultural mores are more successful when they are black and white. When you allow choice, then that can easily lead to conflict/enforcement/punishment/policing. From an energy standpoint it is more advisable to eliminate the conflict. Not that there isn't the policing in many areas ( conflict resolution ), but some might choose to eliminate the need in the first place. And don't forget the average person, especially those under the influence of hormones, are dumb as dirt and need absolute rules. Then you have the whole question of indirect influence. As in this case, seeing how disciplined or conformist members can be. Although I imagine you'd want a free choice to make that marker more worthy. Regardless, religion isn't about following the bible, it is about social control.
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