patrick.net

Wow - I totally gotta read this book.

I do know there's been another major change in the past half-century, that was probably more profound than the Southern Democrats joining Republicans.

And that was in the before WW2 to the early 60s, Professionals - doctors, lawyers, corporate managers, etc. - tended to vote Republican, even in deep blue areas.

The Democrats won the Professionals; is it a wonder they've lost interest in working/middle class advancement?

It was news to me that white collar workers used to reliably vote Republican. I just assumed they always had voted for Democrats before I read this book. Apparently things started changing around the time of McGovern.

Patrick says

I finished the book "Listen Liberal!" by Thomas Frank and this is what I got out of it:

You wasted your time.

I see some truth to it, maybe true for a significant proportion of the democrats in that lower 9% of the top 10%.

As for globalization, from my perspective it isn't about how it affects American workers as much as whether it's necessary for the survival of our species. MY opinion is that at some point something like a UN with power will be necessary for many reasons but the biggest reasons are the environment (not destroying our oceans and dealing with climate change) and weapons of mass destruction.

And a functioning and somewhat fair global economy is probably a prerequisite to anything like a world government coming in to existence.

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

the Southern Democrats joining Republicans.

Lewis Black tells a joke: The only thing worse than a Democrat or Republican,is when these pricks work together.

Yawn, same ole same ole class struggle.

Patrick says

They love inequality, because the are 100% certain that their own position is entirely due to their own merit.

Believing in a meritocracy does not dictate the gap between the winners and the losers in the merit race be wide.

One can totally believe in a meritocracy (and that they deserve their merit), without believing it's a zero sum game, that is without believing that less for you means more for me. There are countries that are great examples of this where the gaps between the typical super successful person and the nominally successful and also the gap down to the regular worker is much narrower.

The sad part of the whole thing is that when the gap is too wide, so much of the top earners pay goes in to bidding up the price of land and other assets, rasing housing costs for everyone which effectively raises the cost of living for future people in that top group, but also raising the cost of housing for everyone in the process thus increasing the gap.

IT's hard to start down a path towards people at the top having less, being willing to live with less, unless it occurs through a crash or other somewhat catastrophic events. I guess it can occur through the magic of progressive taxation.

The professionals aren't the wealthy, per se. They might've achieved upper middle class with aspirations of greatness, but they're mostly involved with bidding up the prices on the best housing in the whitest school districts to ensure their child can go to the same Ivy League university that both ensured their professional establishment and their enslavement to debt. They claim to love diversity, but shun any place that might contain people of color who aren't at least as successful as they are. They justify this by advocating for the very colored people they shun, voting democrat, and engaging in snooty little sniping wars whereby all people who aren't Ivy League graduates are lumped together in a basket of deplorables. These deplorables are assumed to be horrible racists, despite living along colored people in a close association the professional class would never choose for themselves.

The irony of this whole situation is this: because they're professionals (in narrow economically protected fields), they're used to their opinions carrying weight. This leaves them entirely unprepared to understand how a great mass of Americans don't agree with them. Just who do these unwashed deplorables think they are? It's intolerable to them and most won't even question their intolerance.

Ceffer says

Yawn, same ole same ole class struggle.

I think the point was that the Democrats have completely given up on class struggle since the party was taken over the 9%, abandoning the working class.

And that's why all of the gains in wealth have gone to the top since the 1970's. It's not that people are producing less, it's just that it's being distributed like this:

The last two paragraphs of the book are pretty good:

The Democrats have no interest in reforming themselves in a more egalitarian way. There is little the rest of us can do, given the current legal arrangements of this country, to build a vital third-party movement or to revive organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back against the inequality trend.
What we can do is strip away the Democrats' sense of their own moral probity -- to make liberals live without the comforting knowledge that righteousness is always on their side. It is this sensibility, after all, that prevents so many good-hearted rank-and-file Democrats from understanding how starkly and how deliberately their political leaders contradict their values. Once that contradiction has been made manifest -- once that smooth, seamless sense of liberal virtue has been cracked, anything is possible.

rando says

They do not allow any judgement of their own profession except by people highly regarded within it. Outside opinion is regarded as worthless.

Science

Lashkar_i_Trumpi says

Professionals - doctors, lawyers, corporate managers, etc. - tended to vote Republican,

Correct. 50-60 years ago and earlier, teachers as well, although not nearly so highly paid, ranked right up there in respect and authority as the most wealthy doctor, lawyer, judge or business man. The whole of society backed whatever rules came from the teaching establishment as holy writ and gave teachers the respect they earned. From the 70's on, teachers have come more and more from the left and also from the lowest performing members of their high school and college classes, with propensities for public displays of foolishness such as drug use and sexual relations with their students and an inability to maintain order in their classrooms

.rando says

Apparently things started changing around the time of McGovern.

Although it came out of the counterculture of the late 1960's, the McGovern campaign of 1972 validated identity politics as the official doctrine of the democratic party.

"The McGovern team devised a two-pronged strategy to counter the South’s defection. First, McGovern would align himself with recent social movements to a degree that no previous Democrat had contemplated. This meant courting members of movements dismissed by many Democrats as mere “identity politics,” including African Americans, students, women, and gays and lesbians."

rando says

I think the point was that the Democrats have completely given up on class struggle since the party was taken over the 9%, abandoning the working class.

I don't get this.

The way I see it, even after moderating to the right substantially (more corporate money and less representation of workers) democrats still can't mange to gain power. In congress and the federal government in general it's all about winning, having majorities and getting elected in the first place. Democrats have been on the losing side of things for a long time now, largely becasue of gerrymandering of districts by republicans.

As the right moved to the far (crazed) right with the advent of right wing media, democrats moved to the middle even more than where they already were. They didn't have to consciously back identity politics.. They were the only game in town for those that did want to back hose issues, and they were the only game in town for workers too, unless workers wanted to go with a socialist or green party.

Sure, I can see that the typical professional may not be concerned enough about worker issues, as they see their own challenges with family and both partners working and so on, taking so much of their attention. Meanwhile if they vote democratic they may kid themselves that they do care, at least to the extent that they aren't voting republican. What else can they do (short of becoming an activist) ?

The professional class suffers from extreme domain dependence. These people are incapable of functioning outside of their expertise, yet they think they know everything.

Could we have a Labor party that is explicitly about getting higher wages and better benefits for labor, and letting less of the gains go to the very top?

What prevents such a party from forming?

Quigley says

voting democrat, and engaging in snooty little sniping wars whereby all people who aren't Ivy League graduates are lumped together in a basket of deplorables. These deplorables are assumed to be horrible racists, despite living along colored people in a close association the professional class would never choose for themselves.

Yeah right. Way to rewrite history.

SOme of us were repelled by TRump from the get go. And only after he said racist things, refused to denounce David Duke "I don't know who David Duke is" and he said "I could go out on 5th avenue and shoot someone and my followers would still be with me. IT was only after he said these things and so much other crazy shit that the deplorable s comment came out (obviously a political mistake), based on a judgement of peoplke that either could see through Trump's BS or actually liked it, Oh he's so not PC - isn't it wonderful ?"The deplorables comment was not about judging people for not going to Ivy League schools.

What a total crock.

www.youtube.com/embed/5LvixzlG-w4

marcus says

MEanwhile if they vote democratic they may kid themselves that they do care, at least to the extent that they aren't voting republican. What else can they do (short of becoming an activist) ?

You mean lying to themselves about having the same "got mine, fuck your attitude" that republicans have regarding living in good neighborhoods so that their kids can attend good schools?

Well, limo line who believe in equality can encourage busing in of coloreds kids from other side of track...wonder why we rarely see that

If limo limbs were true limbs the. They would try to send their kids to schools that are economically diverse, but maybe with strong academics. These schools do exist and some parents even send their kids to such schools, but it is a minority of the "limo lib" crowd.

On this particular issue, republican better because at least they aren't phony like the limo lib

marcus says

One can totally believe in a meritocracy (and that they deserve their merit), without believing it's a zero sum game, that is without believing that less for you means more for me

Very few asians and Indians I know would agree with that statement in action. In principle maybe, in action prob not

Quigley says

but they're mostly involved with bidding up the prices on the best housing in the whitest school districts to ensure their child can go to the same Ivy League university that both ensured their professional establishment and their enslavement to debt.

Don't think there is shit ton of ivy leaguers from Orange County pub schools but I still fundamentally agree with the point

Patrick says

They do not allow any judgement of their own profession except by people highly regarded within it. Outside opinion is regarded as worthless.

See this with nearly every doctor I know...the 'argument from authority' fallacy. This is the great gift of educational systems that favor rote memorization over critical thinking

MMR says

You mean lying to themselves about having the same "got mine, fuck your attitude" that republicans have regarding living in good neighborhoods so that their kids can attend good schools?

I don't see putting a priority on living in a good school district as being a "got mine fuck you" attitude. That's insane.

MMR says

These schools do exist and some parents even send their kids to such schools, but it is a minority of the "limo lib" crowd.

True, but in major urban areas this is much more doable than it is in many places. IT has to fit with other things they want besides schools. If a suburban community and having a house with a yard etc. is more their thing, I don't see anything particularly evil (or phony) about that.

I don't know what a limo lib is, but I know liberals even in my own family who make decent (not super high incomes), and choose to fit your description somewhat. Nothing phony about it at all. Often times it's even substantially less expensive in say Boston or Chicago, to find an area to live and commute from, with good schools, that's going to be less costly than living in the city near a good diverse public school. And again there are many other lifestyle factors that go in to it. The other thing is that there is a substantial degree of diversity in the places that they do end up (the suburbs) and they aren't running from it as you describe.

What city do you live in may I ask, where you've gained your wisdom allowing you to judge others so well ?

Patrick says

"Listen Liberal!" by Thomas Frank

Let's see how much I match up...

- The lower 9% of the top 10% defines its self worth by the big-name universities they attended.
0 pt
I'm in the lower 9% of the top 10%, but this value is not held by me. College is a tax on entry into the workforce. Colleges are not to be respected. Intellectualism should be respected. Academia can go to hell. It's a scam. There should be a single virtual university that replaces all colleges in the country.

- They comprise the professional class: doctors, lawyers, engineers, professors, journalists, financiers, and they are all very interbred with each other.
1 pt
I and all my siblings are engineers, if you count doctors as engineers. They also married similar professionals. This is actually very common. Doctors marry doctors. Lawyers marry lawyers. Engineers marry engineers. The dual income from two high skill professions makes such a household considerably wealthier than the median household.

- They love inequality, because the are 100% certain that their own position is entirely due to their own merit.
0 pt
I like equality of opportunity, but results you do have to earn. And I believe that each individual should be able to decide how much of his or her life to pursue material wealth and how much to devote to other pursuits. I don't believe in redistributing justly gained wealth, but redistributing wealth parasites gain by siphoning it from others should be done.

Luck clearly dominates in the long run. The very existence of our species is due to luck. Had an asteroid not wiped out the dinosaurs, we would not be here. The very existence of every single person is due to luck. Had your grandparents not met when your granddad decided to get a coffee before walking to work, you would not exist. The random happenstances of luck are cumulative and thus dominate in the long run. However, in the short term, your skill and perseverance dominates. Success is the result of many things, hard work, intelligence, perseverance , and dumb luck.

- They have contempt for unions and for ordinary working people, whom they regard as failures who had the same chance as themselves but were not as smart, or did not work as hard. They see unions as attempting to give ordinary working "uneducated" people wages that they do not deserve.
0.5 pt
This is partly true. Most people are lazy from childhood and well into adulthood. Most students don't give a rats ass about learning and becoming the best they can at some skill that doesn't pay off with higher social status like playing football or being a cheerleader. If they did, we'd have more matheletes than athletes.

Unions are corrupt and do reward the lazy, but the owner class also screws over labor. IT is often screwed over because it never unionized. Doctors don't get screwed over because they have a guild, which is far more powerful than any union could ever be.

- They make their good living by monopolizing information and restricting competition via licensing and deliberately obscure terminology.
0 pt
Maybe other professions do this, but the typical software developer does not even have this option.

- They do not allow any judgement of their own profession except by people highly regarded within it. Outside opinion is regarded as worthless.
0 pt
This is certainly true in general, but I'd respect the opinion of any knowledgeable, intelligent, and honest person. Unfortunately, such people are extremely rare. Then again, my personality type challenges every idea.

- They have completely taken over the Democratic party, and turned it away from traditional working class issues, and toward race, gender, and gay issues.
0 pt
This is also true, but doesn't apply to me. I don't see how protecting civil rights interferes with economic reform. The two, if anything, are complimentary. However, I wouldn't waste time on stupid wedge issues like bathrooms. There are far more important things.

- They consider themselves "diverse" because they accept anyone from the Ivy League regardless of race, gender, or sexual preference. But they do not tolerate any ideological diversity at all. The "consensus of the educated" cannot ever be questioned.
0 pt
I've always made it clear that diversity is not measured by skin tone but with competing ideas and values. And diversity is not necessarily a good thing. You don't want to join forces with the pro-rape-and-murder crowd even though it might make your group more diverse.

- Their leaders absolutely worship Wall Street, far beyond any Republican, and give Wall Street everything it wants. Clinton and Obama in particular were instrumental in solidifying Wall Street power and very happy to cooperate with Republicans to eliminate banking regulation.
0 pt
This is true, but does not apply to me. I hate zero-sum games and believe in rewarding productivity.

- They see globalization as always and everywhere good, and do not care in the least if eliminates the jobs of the "uneducated", since it is their own fault for being uneducated. Except of course, when globalization threatens their own jobs. Then it is an outrage.
0.5 pt
Globalization is going to happen, like it or not. It is happening, like it or not. The best you can do is try to shape globalization to be in the interest of the population as a whole.

- The fight between labor and capital was utterly abandoned by these Democrats. They love capital and despise labor. They figure it doesn't matter in elections because the working class will have no choice but to vote for Democrats.
0 pt
True, but doesn't apply to me. I like intellectual labor, but it's still labor.

2 out of 11 points. I guess I don't fit in with my demographic.

rando says

Could we have a Labor party that is explicitly about getting higher wages and better benefits for labor, and letting less of the gains go to the very top?

What prevents such a party from forming?

Capitalism. The problem is that we have a capital class and a labor class. We should not. We should just have labor, whether that labor is physical or intellectual. If you aren't producing wealth, you should not be gaining wealth. Capitalism is precisely the separation of society into a small capital class and a large labor class and giving the power of production and distribution of wealth created by production to the capital class. If you take away the power to cut and distribute the pie from the capital class, then by definition, you are abandoning capitalism.

Any system in which the person cutting the pie also chooses who gets which slice will be inherently unjust. Even five-year-olds understand this.

rando says

And that's why all of the gains in wealth have gone to the top since the 1970's. It's not that people are producing less, it's just that it's being distributed like this:

That graph shows that the capital class is taxing the wealth producers the vast majority of their production. Even if the capital class were scraping by with siphoning nearly 0% of wealth in 1972, they would be siphoning over 55% of the worker's wealth production today. When you realize the capital class was damn rich even in 1972, that makes today's capital class's tax on the working class at least 65% and possibly close to 90%. That's a hell of a lot of taxing for the privilege of working your balls off.

Patrick, are you serious? You were that ignorant!?

I'm shocked.

I guess it's true about democrats, there all just ignorant.

You joining us rebel republicans?

rando says

It was news to me that white collar workers used to reliably vote Republican. I just assumed they always had voted for Democrats before I read this book. Apparently things started changing around the time of McGovern.

Related:

Declaring that Germany is in desperate need of migrants, the head of the umbrella group for employers’ associations has demanded the nation loosen border controls and recognise itself to be an “immigration country”.

“Germany is an immigration country. And Germany has to be made aware of this situation,” said Ingo Kramer, president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA).

According to the German Press Agency, Kramer said the nation will be ‘missing’ six million people of working age by the year 2030, and argued that politicians ‘must quickly realise that the country needs immigration”.

The Bremerhaven-born entrpreneur admitted, however, that this was not easy at a time when “there is some unease about migration — at least on the right of the political spectrum, because of the refugee crisis”.

But Kramer (pictured, far left) warned that the alternative would mean ‘trying to keep Germany going as an economic powerhouse with fewer people’.

As well as calling for new, ‘labour-oriented’ immigration policies, the employers’ associations chief said the state should be looking at expanding facilities — and the hours at which they operate — for looking after children so as to ensure that women work at maximum capacity.

“Only then will women be able to fully exploit all the opportunities open to them in their careers,” Kramer said.

‘Einwanderungsland’, the term used by the BDA chief to mean ‘a country of immigration’, has traditionally been used to refer to countries such as the U.S., Australia, and nations in Latin America.

It's about low wages. Only economists could come up with a chart that showed a declining population needing the same or larger number of service workers.

And on the Democratic Party:

Again, I'm too expert to have gotten it wrong. If I failed, then "Listen All Y'all It's a Sabotage." Let's stop talking about the Democrats being out of touch and talk about the Intercept, Wikileaks, and Putler's Agent Trump!

Germany is partially right. It isn't close to replacement for population at 1.4 per couple. That's eventual crash territory, and should be addressed with urgency lest the problem persist. However, encouraging people to have children with incentives that matter like free childcare at young ages and flexible workdays for working mothers is more appropriate. If an entire generation is missing workers of adult age, careful importing of people with good values and work ethics and skills should be preferred.
Opening the doors to Muslim barbarians is a lazy and stupid response to this problem.

marcus says

don't see putting a priority on living in a good school district as being a "got mine fuck you" attitude. That's insane.

It is when it prevents less advantaged people from accessing those schools. Voting for welfare benefits doesn't assuage the problem in any meaningful way, other than to make the limousine liberal voter feel good about themselves.

Why should there be a variability in how funds for public schools are disbursed?. "Separate but equal" is what you seem to advocate as well as your relatives with your indifference.

marcus says

Often times it's even substantially less expensive in say Boston or Chicago, to find an area to live and commute from, with good schools, that's going to be less costly than living in the city near a good diverse public school.

Ok well if limousine liberals truly care about the welfare of those less advantaged, they would allow for busing of those students until taxpayer funds can be applied to improving the schools I. Their neighborhoods?

Public schools should be equal across the board even if it requires h1-b teachers to do the jobs that people like you don't want to do.

IMO, economic interdependence through trade provides for several advantages:
1) More peace / less war, because countries that trade don't want to shoot themselves in the foot by shooting each other.
2) More overall efficiency, as countries can specialize and more efficiently use natural resources by selling to the highest bidder.

One drawback for the US is that suddenly, the labor market for corporations just exploded, so the value of human labor went down. This happened across the board, but especially in the untrained / lower skill work. This coincided with mechanization which punched American labor in the face after trade kicked them in the nuts.

Mechanization is never going away. Free (fairly free) trade is very unlikely to get clawed back. It's not to say that the establishment (Dems and Republicans) don't care. It's just that there is no easy solution to this. If Trump could wave a wand and make these problems go away, I'm sure he would. Is he willing to spend a lot of political capital on this? Probably not. Will he be able to solve this problem? I highly doubt it. If he does, it will probably come at the expense of global peace. For better or for worse, he is preparing for this by trying to hugely increase military spending.

I don't think that professional class liberals have contempt for working lesser educated classes. But they probably do overvalue their own skillset as pretty much everybody does. That's just human nature. OTOH, the uneducated classes tend to undervalue the difficulty and hard work that usually goes into the professional class's education.

marcus says

What city do you live in may I ask, where you've gained your wisdom allowing you to judge others so well ?

Judge others? ...I went to some of the worst schools in the US. Gallup High in Gallup NM. Probably worse than the LA public school that you teach at. Nigga please

Voting for welfare is really about keeping coloreds on their side of track and promoting de facto segregation. Nothing phony about that whatsoever, right? But I guess limousine liberals like your relatives can pat themselves on back by saying they did something by voting for people who vote for welfare. Never mind that it doesn't work and education is their best chance, not welfare.

Living in North Jersey currently, the public school in my neighborhood is 4/10 on Zillow. West Orange high school.

Quigley says

Germany is partially right. It isn't close to replacement for population at 1.4 per couple. That's eventual crash territory, and should be addressed with urgency lest the problem persist. However, encouraging people to have children with incentives that matter like free childcare at young ages and flexible workdays for working mothers is more appropriate. If an entire generation is missing workers of adult age, careful importing of people with good values and work ethics and skills should be preferred.

There's also millions of unemployed Eastern Europeans and Greeks, who will fit in far better, and are actually members of the same EU club, and neighbors.

That's why there's a landlord element to this as well. Lots of failing B&Bs and hotels are being leased to the Bundestag for Refugee housing. Something Poles, Romanians, etc. wouldn't get.

rando says

I think the point was that the Democrats have completely given up on class struggle since the party was taken over the 9%, abandoning the working class.

It's not completely true. Democrats see public unions as part of their constituency. In fact when they say "working family", it's code for "union members".

Although all this is just smoke and mirrors hiding their real constituency: the plutocrats.

In my view the 9% are just people who think they matter, and go along for the ride because:
1- they get crumbs at the table (they still profit far more than the rest of the population)
2 - because expressing empathy for poor immigrants and people of color makes them feel good.

They are the 90%

Bottom 9% of the top 10%, is places 91-100, when what you mean to say is places 11-100, which are the bottom 90% of the top 10%.

I'm interpetting
Patrick says

The lower 9% of the top 10% defines its self worth by the big-name universities they attended.

to mean persons 91 through 99 in a system with 100 people where person 100 is the wealthiest.

Technically, the top 10% would be persons 91 through 100, and the bottom 9% of that would be 90% of person 91. But, it's pretty clear that he meant 9% of the total rather than 9% of 10%.

100 people.

Persons 1-10 top 10%

Persons 11-100 the other 90%

YesYNot says

IMO, economic interdependence through trade provides for several advantages:

1) More peace / less war, because countries that trade don't want to shoot themselves in the foot by shooting each other.

2) More overall efficiency, as countries can specialize and more efficiently use natural resources by selling to the highest bidder.

The first is still to be tested by time. In a crisis, countries will fall back on protecting themselves and their economies. The ensuing collapse of trade will make things worse. Last globalization phase ended in WW2 for this very reason. You already have rampant reactionary nationalism in China and in the US. Where does it lead?

The second leads to absurd level of efficiency and crap products. When you have a few factories providing commoditized phones and socks, and everything else, for the entire planet population and a large portion of people is out of work, and unable to provide for themselves, then you realize something is very wrong with this picture. People should be able to produce their own stuff, customize it, make it unique, be proud of it, and have a job. In most situation "efficiency" from globalization just prevents that.

MMR says

You mean lying to themselves about having the same "got mine, fuck your attitude" that republicans have regarding living in good neighborhoods so that their kids can attend good schools?

Isn't it great to virtue signal how great it is to have mass immigration of third worlders, who can't afford to live in your neighborhood, whose kids don got to your kids' district, while you fight against halfway homes for drug addicts opening up nearby... meanwhile, you can brag about how "Welcoming" you are, as the rent you charge for your parents house in the former middle class inner suburb they left for you in their will goes up every month. And you no longer have to put up with Johnny to mow your lawn, when Jose does the same Job for $20 less.

And you can be full of smug goodness in the process!

Thanks, Maslow's Hierarchy!

SpecialSafe says

In most situation "efficiency" from globalization just prevents that.

Yes. Efficiency is usually the enemy of Robustness.

Back in the day, a hurricane hit and warehouses had tons of lumber, before the era of "Just In Time" Inventory.

Today, a hurricane hits and it takes week(s) to get enough lumber to patch things up. Due to the "efficiency" of JIT.

errc says

Persons 1-10 top 10%

Persons 11-100 the other 90%

I agree with that, but don't understand your previous comment.
Group 1) Person 1 is top 1%.
Group 2) Persons 1 to 10 is top 10%
Group 3) Person 1 is top 10% of the top 10%
Group 4) Persons 2-10 is bottom 90% of the top 10%
Group 5) Person 11 to 100 is bottom 90% of the total
People often refer to Group 4 as the bottom 9% of the top 10%, even thought it is really the bottom 90% of the top 10%.