Greer comments...
E. Goldstein, yep. That’s the kleptocratic mentality that rules corporate America today, and the only thing that will change it is stark terror in the boardrooms, which socialists are good at providing.
Drhooves, I’ve noted before that the Long Descent isn’t a straight line — quite the contrary, there will be steep downward lurches, followed by stabilization and even by modest improvements in the window of opportunity before the next crisis hits. Working people in the US have been through one of those steep downward lurches; now the modest improvement seems to be cutting in. In a decline lasting one to three centuries, a lot of variation can be expected.
As for socialism, er, as I said, it’s pretty consistently a flop in the US. I don’t expect it to attract more than ten per cent of the electorate — but that’s enough to scare the bejesus out of the kleptocratic rich, which is a good thing for reasons already discussed.
As for the big tech companies, most of them are riding a temporary boom caused by absurdly low borrowing costs and the fad-driven nature of the stock market. My guess is that some of the biggest tech and internet stock names will go the way of Pets.com in the decade or so immediately ahead of us.
Mog, don’t mistake neoliberal economics for the broader realm of capitalist “free� market economics. Trump is an unabashed partisan of the latter, but his trade and immigration policy are in flat contradiction to basic principles of neoliberalism, and his administration’s assault on the regulatory state undercuts an equally important but normally unmentioned element of neoliberalism as practiced.
Blue Sun, one secret for effective prediction is to remember that every political action is followed by an unequal and not precisely opposite reaction. The massive concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of the tech-industry plutocrats was always guaranteed to generate blowback, and the extent to which the tech industry has aligned itself with the establishment against Trump guarantees that they’re going to have a big red bull’s-eye taped to their collective backside if he gets through the midterms without a resounding rejection by the voters.
Drhooves, oh, IT is going to take it in the gut, and so are a lot of other middle class occupations. It’s the working class end of the economy that’s going to benefit, not the university-educated knowledge professions. As I pointed out in my prediction, the boom won’t be evenly or fairly distributed, and some of those who have been sitting pretty in recent decades are likely to end up in a world of hurt as things shift.
Mog, the comment of mine to which you objected describes three core features of neoliberalism; that kind of working taxonomy, it seems to me, is more useful than a definition about which, inevitably, nits will get picked. Do you disagree that free trade, open borders, and metastatic government regulation aimed at crushing small businesses are core elements of the neoliberal playbook?
Chris, when business leaders talk about a skills shortage, what that means is that they’re furious that they might have to raise their wages to attract employees. The poor dears, they can’t bear the thought of making not quite so many million dollars a year!
Jose, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Neoliberalism has failed, not just a little bit but totally; it has not yielded the general prosperity it was supposed to yield — quite the contrary, it’s benefited an already comfortable minority at the expense of everyone else. As that becomes ever more painfully clear, voters are looking for alternatives, and finding them; the rise of populist parties and leaders in eastern Europe, in the US, and in Mexico is part of that very broad trend. Thus Trump and AMLO seemed to have no trouble at all finding common ground for a trade agreement; they can approach the negotiations in good faith, on the assumption that each nation has its economic interests to protect — just as Trump and the Polish prime minister, another populist, had a very productive meeting the other day. I expect to see more of this as populism spreads.
Shane, I suspect that partly it’s a personal grudge — Trump and Trudeau seem to have taken an instant dislike to one another — but it’s also Canada’s role as the most privileged of the client states in the US empire. During our age of empire, having Canada as a contented and loyal vassal was essential to the US geopolitical strategy, and so a variety of one-sided arrangements were put in place to keep Canada in that position. As the US stands down from its global empire, we don’t need Canada as a vassal, and the privileges we’ve given our neighbor to the north cost more than, in an post-imperial age, they’re worth.
As a result, expect to hear the wealthy classes in Canada scream like banshees as the US says “Nice knowing you� and pursues a policy oriented toward its own domestic interests, and to building a mutually beneficial relationship with its southern neighbor instead. What’s still undecided is whether Canada will seek to maintain its status as a lapdog of empires and cuddle up to China, or whether it will start acting like the huge and resource-rich nation it is and pursue an independent foreign policy in alliance with Australia and India, its logical allies as a counterbalance against Chinese global hegemony.
Peace always has been and always will be an intermittent flash of light in a dark history of warfare, violence, and destruction
