Sometimes you just kind of can’t wrap your mind around it all.
I mean just look at recent stuff. Thomas Piketty’s book provides a mountain of empirical evidence that wealth grows faster than income and that wealth inequality tends to get worse over time. Gregory Clark shows that wealth persists within particular families for as much as ten to fifteen generations. Neil Irwin points out that the notion that economic growth reduces poverty hasn’t held true for something like 40 years. Corey Robin’s blog houses an endless litany of deprivations that people have to endure at work. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a massive history of the systematic exclusion, bias, and inequality that black people have faced, from the end of slavery through Jim Crow and right up to present day. A 30-year study finds that of the 800 poor kids it tracked, only 33 made it into a high income bracket by adulthood. And empirical research, and common sense, tell us that we lack the political power to change these things because our system of governance has been captured by the wealthy. And this fucking guy is seen by some to be the future of the party that’s supposed to oppose all of this stuff.
Despair is a luxury, one denied to the truly suffering, and I try not to invoke that privilege out of solidarity with them. But I really cannot see a way out of all this. In an unprecedented financial crisis, the world’s wealthiest elites crushed the global economy, due to unambiguous greed, fraud, and incompetence. They were bailed out thanks to the passive blackmail that is “too big to fail.” In response, the world has retrenched to austerity, preserving the wealth in the hands of that self-same elite rather than pursuing policies that might benefit those who were their victims. Yet the movement towards a more just and equitable distribution of resources has rarely seemed bleaker in my life. Where do you go from there?
Is it possible that we’ve lost for good? That any victories from here on out will be inconsequential? That the underlying structure is here to stay.
Digging through your l’hote archive, after you linked it in your previous post I stumbled upon a post you wrote in the aftermath of the 2008 election: http://lhote.blogspot.com/2008/11/success-and-divorce.html
“Prop 8 has forced me to give up on the notion that gay marriage, and with it, complete integration of the homosexual community into mainstream America, are inevitable.”
Six year later and it seems more likely than ever that almost exactly a year from now, gay marriage will be the law of the land in all fifty states.
That said, social change is much easier than economic. Yet, sometimes you just don’t see political change coming until its right infront of your face. My despair comes from the difference in kind between economic and social problem. But, the Obama administration did enact a health care bill paid for through extremely progressive measures, providing me and millions of others affordable coverage. Genuine redistribution.
It may be more of an act at chipping away at our structural economic malaise, rather than the force seen in the previous six years in advancing marriage equality. If your recent post on how difficult it is to manage a financially stable family and relationship given the economic conditions of young people rings true beyond the chatting people of the internet, perhaps swifter and broader reforms may be nearer than we believe. I don’t know, but you gotta have some kind of hope, or what’s the point.
When I was a young hippie ever so long ago we were expecting the imminent collapse of Western Civilization on the grounds that it was too stupidly conceived to continue. And so still, although it turns out the collapse is upwards and not downwards, and it’s taking a lot longer than I would have believed.
The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Learn to grow vegetables.
Maybe we should “value hope above expectations”? “This fucking guy” makes his political calculations. And LGBT voters will make theirs. Should we judge them if they decide to vote for “this fucking guy”? By the way, I enjoy reading your blog, even when I don’t agree with your opinions, (also) because I cannot see any calculations here…
Um, yes, because people have a general responsibility to society, not just themselves, when they vote. I voted for Cuomo first time around. Fair enough. He wasn’t exactly an unknown quantity but I was hopeful and gave him a shot. But now? Cuomo I might vote for this fall because what’s the alternative? On the other hand, I might just vote for the Republican since: Cuomo basically is a Republican on fiscal issues, and I don’t see him pursuing any new progressive goals like gay marriage in his second term AND it would hopefully put the brakes on his national ascendancy.
By the time Cuomo runs for President in 2016 or later, gay marriage will already be a foregone conclusion. The only credit he’ll get for it is in terms of legislative talent (and it’s not insignificant, pushing something through in Albany!) But the progressive nature of the law? Yeah, I don’t see it being big if more states fall like dominoes. How is that his progressive calling card? O’Malley was later but he can claim the same thing. And even the stupidest progressive can’t be stupid enough to think Cuomo will throw us a few bones beyond that.
If you’re in the US, you get involved with Mayday and the 28th amendment movement.
I feel more hopeful as I see these things appearing. Three weeks ago a den politician-hopeful told me nothing could be done, and the next day these pop up on my Facebook feed!
I don’t have any magic answers for you, but how about this: a few weeks ago Ta-Nehisi Coates stunned everyone when, as part of a back-and-forth he was having with Jon Chait, said that the white power structure had probably won and was never going away. A few weeks later he came out with his monumental work on reparations. So, if the white power structure is never going to be broken why did he spend so much effort on reparations? Because there is no choice but to advocate for what is right. So, keep plugging away.
I’m not just being flip when I say that this piece is way too optimistic. ’cause it’s true. You don’t even mention many additional, astronomically-sized grounds for despair that interact with all the factors you mention:
* The seemingly unstoppable momentum of the surveillance/drone state, which will be used to prevent any effective organizing against the things you mention;
* Climate change, which will hurt the poorest the worst, which is driven by forces which further give money to the wealthy, and which will create ongoing crises which will (a la Naomi Klein) justify further repression & inequality;
…and on and on. Gun violence. Racism. Really, everything is totally fucked, and you only scratch the surface, despite your marvelous bringing together of several huge, massive sources of overwhelming despair.
Just to clarify: I liked this post a lot. But yeah: too optimistic. As a joke. But also for real.
Did you finish Piketty’s book?
Still plugging away. It’s very slow going, by my standards, although in my defense a lot of my attention is taken by my dissertation.
You’re still doing better than 99% of the commentariat who won’t even bother. Good on ya.
It’s notable, I think, that within the Pikketty dataset the lack of mobility seems to show up mostly at the lowest and highest levels http://t.co/7JUs2chRGB and there is mobility in the 10th-90th percentiles of earning power.
Two other interesting things to look at http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2014/03/hhresid.gif (from http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/03/18/289013884/who-had-richer-parents-doctors-or-arists) and http://i.imgur.com/A13xItr.png (from http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2012/09/20-pathways-middle-class-sawhill-winship)
Both of those would suggest that, and these are US based, it’s not as inevitable as the Micklethwaits–if American Blacks get good nutrition, good education, go into well-paying professions, and so on, then maybe they will move from Mississippi or whatever it takes to rise up from 20th percentile to 40th percentile in a generation.
Indeed as someone who looks at this from a data perspective rather than having an intimate personal knowledge of the issues, two things I notice from the numbers alone are very big differences in mean & median African-American vs White Non-Hispanic wealth in US, and a significant rise in African-American incomes over the last decade or two.
What to conclude from all this I don’t know, just providing some ballast as your sources are quite pessimistic.
Also, this: https://24.media.tumblr.com/1ea99e028fde80895ce73550d0726528/tumblr_n4fiqbfErJ1qc38e9o1_1280.png
from
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income-ladder-location-matters.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&
Notice a lot of red in the southeast (http://censusviewer.com/wp-content/uploads/African-Americans-US.jpg also the most African-American’s in SE) so around 4% or 5% chance of a child in the bottom fifth of earnings, eventually making in the top fifth of earnings. But born in Minnesota your chances are 35% of such a transition (over 20% — so they’re edging out others very well)