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GlassHammer
I wish I had the time and ability to fully expound on the total lack of “economic freedom” in vast regions of the U.S. because I don’t think those on the outside realize how much of the “economic prosperity” touted over the last 100 years was complete fiction.
For those living in the states it’s a massive landmass of “economic deadzones” with “little islands of economic activity” scattershot across it. Your proximity to those “little islands of economic activity” determines the course of your life far more than any skill, decision, or beliefs that you have. (Every single member of my family tree going back several generations made the primary goal to “move near” one of these “little islands of economic activity”, every single one without exception did this and everything they might tell you about “their good decisions, beliefs, skills etc…” came well after that initial decision to “move near”.)
And… even if you do manage to secure a foothold near one of those “little islands of economic activity” you know a.) it’s a temporary get in, earn quick, and get out arrangement, b.) you will be relocating back to an economic deadzone (but hopefully with enough resources to make it bearable), and c.) there is zero community development in this arrangement so expect coordination for any “projects of betterment” to be extremely slow.
This why Americans are always trading away “political freedom” for “economic freedom”, most can’t obtain the bare minimum level of resources because of where they are on this landmass so they simply don’t care what the political power arrangements are.
Eric Anderson
I’d like to share an interesting thought that was stimulated by a post over on Mastodon.
Here is the link to what i think is an important Dave Troy blog post:
https://america2.news/to-survive-this-we-must-break-the-fourth-wall/
Here is my response:
https://kolektiva.social/@LeftistLawyer/114164371393243968
We’re witnessing the logical end result of decades of neoliberalism. The synthesis of the neoliberal policies, blended with the xenophobic rhetoric that has accompanied it, has produced a new economic paradigm I’m going to begin calling “Neo(Nazi)Liberalism.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Eric Anderson
Glasshammer:
Indeed. See my post above. I think our posts dovetail nicely.
bruce wilder
@GlassHammer
I don’t think the economic phenomenon you are referring to is peculiarly American, though maybe the American brand is on the neoliberal capitalist version.
Matt Stoller has been doing yeoman labor in bringing attention to how monopoly consolidation by globalist rentiers drives the economic opportunity drought that spreads like an encroaching desert across the landscape. His substack is worth following for the economic details.
The politics are problematic for a bunch of foundational reasons. Neoliberalism really consolidated its hegemony when the Democratic Party abandoned the working classes to embrace Clintonian third-way corruption and gradually became the Party of the PMC, whose class consciousness was formed in heat of the neoliberal forge. The PMC are the people, who had operational responsibility for exporting jobs to China and Mexico, driving Private Equity bulldozers through company after company, industry after industry. PMC Democrats are the people MAGA hates above all else and the feeling is mutual. So even though the core of Republican MAGA (which is NOT working class so much as it is the aspiring small entrepreneur class, and so knows something of what is going on and why they are themselves in various degrees severe economic pain) might be somewhat open to an antitrust policy (see Josh Hawley, J.D. Vance), they remain the junior partners in a plutocrat’s Republican Party and largely isolated from any kind of alliance with antitrust Democrats. Antitrust Democrats may be even more of a powerless minority in their own Party than MAGA is in the Republican Party when it comes to policy let alone coalitional bargains.
The disdain of the PMC for the working class and for the vulgarity of “some college” small entrepreneur and manager class is a force to be reckoned with. These people have opinions where their empathy bone should be and very little sense of responsibility for “the system” of bureaucratic non-performance that they have built and managed for the last 30 or 40 years.
Leaving aside the politics of red v blue shouting and insult, rank ignorance of economics plus the stupid that goes with it plays its own part. Neoliberalism is based on a fairy tale of “free markets” assembled by dreamweavers to make any earnest discussion economic policy very difficult to conjure. What is a Pharmacy Benefits Manager and why is it legal? To whom is the massive ballooning Federal deficit going? The political discourse on such subjects cannot off the ground because the common understanding of economics will not support i.