Good piece. I agree that the DNC is a huge part of, and perpetuates the problem. My hope is that the chaos and trauma of the next couple years will generate true system change. That's what I'm working on. I'm part of the "resistance" but actually I'm for TRANSCENDANCE rather than just resistance.
Another, potentially far more serious, consequence of globalized supply chains - and urbanization - is that no country is able to produce and transport its own basic necesssities. International finance are the gatekeepers, and are able to shut down anyone who aims at self-sufficiency.
As long as we depend on vast multi-national institutions, be they capitalist or communist, we can never be free.
I personally don’t think Trump’s tariff scheme won’t work to renew industrial manufacturing as you suggest (assuming its even allowed to be put in effect). It may bring back some manufacturing, particularly in sectors deemed to be in the “national interest” like chipmaking, where their need to have reliable production overcomes their need to keep costs low. But whatever it is, it will take years to spin up and it will be more dependent on automation and less empowering to workers. In the meantime, the tariffs will also make the cheaply produced foreign goods that Americans have come to depend on much more expensive.
The US (and much of the West) priced itself out of manufacturing a long time ago with worker safety and protections and so on. While Labor has been ghettoized behind borders, Capital has globalized and is able to bring global resources to bear and they will not give that up. If Labor were able to internationalize, it would become a serious threat to capital. Imagine simultaneous strikes across the world against the capitalists.
That’s not to say that unions still could not become a threat to capitalist interests. Elon Musk and Amazon are pushing that the NLRB is unconstitutional and should be abolished. Such a move could, ironically enough, open opportunities for Labor. It could see return of a more militant Labor, with wildcat strikes and workplace sabotage.
But I don’t see Trump as able to resolve the contradictions of capitalism, no matter how authoritarian he may become.
Modern workers are dual producer-consumers. They are expected to do both, and if not they are largely excluded from society. They receive a fraction of the value they produce in the form of a paycheck, which they then use to pay for the goods and services they consume.
The core contradiction is this: in their desperation to profit, the capitalists have cut the workers’ paychecks, and so the workers have less money to consume with, which is causing capitalist profits to fall.
The capitalist class’s profits have been falling since the 1970s and they’ve been struggling to claw them back ever since. Their campaign started with Reagan and continued under Clinton and Bush and even into Obama’s term, but they have not been able to reverse the decline.
Just as Napoleon was able to gain the support of a faction of the ruling class, Trump also represents a faction of the ruling class (he could not have become President twice without it). This faction knows that things like worker protections and democratic rights will have to be rolled back if they want to see their profits rise (their idea of fixing the contradictions of capitalism). But the solutions that they will allow to Trump won’t fix the problems inherent in capitalist democracy.
I would not call this action by the political parties "the process of recuperation." I rather see it as a process of political assimilation and even cannibalism.
Great last paragraph.
Good piece. I agree that the DNC is a huge part of, and perpetuates the problem. My hope is that the chaos and trauma of the next couple years will generate true system change. That's what I'm working on. I'm part of the "resistance" but actually I'm for TRANSCENDANCE rather than just resistance.
Another, potentially far more serious, consequence of globalized supply chains - and urbanization - is that no country is able to produce and transport its own basic necesssities. International finance are the gatekeepers, and are able to shut down anyone who aims at self-sufficiency.
As long as we depend on vast multi-national institutions, be they capitalist or communist, we can never be free.
I personally don’t think Trump’s tariff scheme won’t work to renew industrial manufacturing as you suggest (assuming its even allowed to be put in effect). It may bring back some manufacturing, particularly in sectors deemed to be in the “national interest” like chipmaking, where their need to have reliable production overcomes their need to keep costs low. But whatever it is, it will take years to spin up and it will be more dependent on automation and less empowering to workers. In the meantime, the tariffs will also make the cheaply produced foreign goods that Americans have come to depend on much more expensive.
The US (and much of the West) priced itself out of manufacturing a long time ago with worker safety and protections and so on. While Labor has been ghettoized behind borders, Capital has globalized and is able to bring global resources to bear and they will not give that up. If Labor were able to internationalize, it would become a serious threat to capital. Imagine simultaneous strikes across the world against the capitalists.
That’s not to say that unions still could not become a threat to capitalist interests. Elon Musk and Amazon are pushing that the NLRB is unconstitutional and should be abolished. Such a move could, ironically enough, open opportunities for Labor. It could see return of a more militant Labor, with wildcat strikes and workplace sabotage.
But I don’t see Trump as able to resolve the contradictions of capitalism, no matter how authoritarian he may become.
Modern workers are dual producer-consumers. They are expected to do both, and if not they are largely excluded from society. They receive a fraction of the value they produce in the form of a paycheck, which they then use to pay for the goods and services they consume.
The core contradiction is this: in their desperation to profit, the capitalists have cut the workers’ paychecks, and so the workers have less money to consume with, which is causing capitalist profits to fall.
The capitalist class’s profits have been falling since the 1970s and they’ve been struggling to claw them back ever since. Their campaign started with Reagan and continued under Clinton and Bush and even into Obama’s term, but they have not been able to reverse the decline.
Just as Napoleon was able to gain the support of a faction of the ruling class, Trump also represents a faction of the ruling class (he could not have become President twice without it). This faction knows that things like worker protections and democratic rights will have to be rolled back if they want to see their profits rise (their idea of fixing the contradictions of capitalism). But the solutions that they will allow to Trump won’t fix the problems inherent in capitalist democracy.
I would not call this action by the political parties "the process of recuperation." I rather see it as a process of political assimilation and even cannibalism.