Are old-school American socialists fighting for a society that will never come back?
As a current undergrad in college, I see a lot of my left-wing peers advocating for a return to the economic structure of the 1950s, with high-paying blue collar jobs that can support an entire family, high unionization, and 90% income tax on the highest earners. I personally am a political moderate and can sympathize with many of their views on better labor conditions and a higher minimum wage to keep up with a rising cost of living.
However, I can't help but feel that like the old-school conservatives who want to fight for a society with traditional households and high church attendance, these peers of mine also are fighting for an America that will no longer exist again because the structural underpinnings of it no longer exist. For instance, post WW2, Europe and Asian's industrial base was completely destroyed and only America had the factories open to manufacture the world's goods, hence the massive inflows of wealth into the now-Rust Belt cities, etc. The GI Bill allowed a large amount of demobilized men to attend college and increase their productivity, and the Baby Boom created a huge surge of demand.
However, as we now know, none of this was meant to last and Asian and European factories started to rebuild and reopen, undercutting the profits of American factories and starting the process of offshoring. This created the Rust Belts and the populist discontent that now pervades American politics, which both the left and right hope to capture. However, are these populists simply creating a pipe dream of a future that will never come to be? I'm not anti-union and I do genuinely want better worker conditions but I feel like a lot of promises both sides are making to working-class Americans are not only just empty talk, but completely unworkable and preventing us from coming up with better alternatives. Interested in hearing this forum's thoughts.
Blue collar Rust Belt workers have largely sold themselves out for whatever scraps their union can give them. Unionized pay and benefits during the 1950s led to growth during that era because people were more productive. Like you mentioned, the US manufacturing base was intact and the workers consumed less than the economic growth rate.
Workers were happy with what they were given because it was actually enough compensation to for them to consume and grow (buy a colored TV while also funding 2 kids college funds and a small boat), but the capitalist class wanted to create operating leverage. Since wages are the highest operating costs for most companies they remained fairly static while production rose, causing price inflation. If you were a capitalist investor this didn’t matter since your yields rose more than inflation but for everyone else they began to consume less as their labor(money) was worth less.
What’s happening now is that those people in the Rust Belt don’t want to work shitty factory jobs that don’t provide enough money to support both consumption and reinvestment. The problem is that Chinese workers are willing for $1.50 an hour, so rust belt workers have no pricing power and will lose market share to other countries. Since the working class is a big part of American society their populism demands politicians reign in wasteful spending like on tech subsidies/military/fenty test kits and instead subsidize commodities like oil and beef while letting them consume more in wages by creating tariffs. Politicians on both sides try to bribe the rust belt voters to vote for them by promoting populist policies but in the long run it’s not going to be sustainable since it’s not profitable.
Thanks for the detailed writeup - I had a debate with a libertarian friend a couple days ago about the reason subsidies for agricultural goods like corn and wheat exist - not only would it support the farming heartland of America but it also ensures that people making minimum wage can feed themselves.
Do you see this current political paradigm ending soon? The mainstream Left wants to make the rest of America like coastal California (high taxation with a lot of public services, lots of environmental, labor, and social regulations, etc) but it doesn't seem to work for all 50 states. I'm not sure what the mainstream Right's vision for America is exactly but it seems like the Republicans are rallying around DeSantis so I assume it's like current Florida. These states are prosperous because of unique social and environmental advantages which seem to be hard to replicate across all of America.
The two parties have almost exactly the same goals as one another. They want give the people just enough so they don’t riot and burn down the government while also making enough profit to keep the growth engine going and enriching themselves.
Desantis is saying that he’s going to protect freedom to use gas stoves and fair trade, but what he really wants is you to be okay with going to your low paying factor job. As long as you have enough money to continue working and blame your impoverishment on drag queens going to elementary school you’re not gonna be noticing the rich people enjoying the profits of your labor.
Same thing with the democrats, though they want you to forget about your impoverishment by making you focus on social wrongs such as the countries internal racism, though they will happily buy fancy houses with the money made from systems that perpetuate the wrongdoings they oppose. The democrats actually don’t like weed that much; it’s not like successful liberal ceos love seeing their employees smoke weed all day and be less productive. They legalize and support it because if it’s what it takes to keep you working for $25/h at your shitty job and not be mad at being exploited then it’s a calculated loss.
TLDR the political parties and ideas don’t matter they’re a reflection on how the country thinks. politicians divert attention from the fact that you’re being stolen from so they can enrich their clan, though this isn’t different from any industry.
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