Now Playing: Fundamental thoughts
No, not about religion. I have a couple of thoughts about civil society and American attitudes that are/will form the basis of some of my writing in the near future. I am interested in comments:
1) The most important and effective means of building a stable society is to foster a large and genuine middle class.
2) The worst thing you can do is create a society with a hole in the middle -- a small but very affluent upper class and a large, impoverished lower class. This type of society has to rely on physical force and intimidation (arrests, interrogation and punishment) to maintain order. Order becomes the most important societal value. Violence, either in the form of sanctified state violence or resistence violence, becomes a mainstream part of the culture.
3) Ergo, the best thing we could possibly do to fight the Great War on Terror is to foster a middle class in third world countries. The worst thing we can do is to foster corporate imperialism, like we seem to be doing in Iraq.
4) America was at its peak of power, prestiege and influence during the period from World War II to the end of the century. Although winning WWII had a lot to do with it, this also was the golden age of the American middle class. Bush's war on the middle class portends nothing but trouble.
5) Americans have a real attitude toward other Americans. They are scared to death that someone else will get something for nothing. They are also convinced that everyone else is overpaid, and they take delight in "lower prices every day," at the expense of the wages of other Americans.
6) We have bought, lock, stock and barrel, the truism that we need capital, investment and business profits in order to create a bountiful society. What we have lost is another truism, that workers need to make a decent wage in order to support a prosperous society. As wages stagnate, Americans have turned to debt and two-income households to keep themselves and the economy going. What happens when that runs out? Henry Ford had it right when he said that he had to pay his workers enough that they could buy one of the cars that they produce. Today, we have a perverted version of that -- Walmart pays so little that its workers can't afford to shop anywhere but Walmart.
Posted by The Goatherder
at 11:30 AM EST
