> On Feb 27, 2024, at 2:12 PM, Les Schaffer <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> i thought i had turned off notifications while i edited and uploaded the
> graph. oops.
Les: Sorry I publicized your work prematurely.
Charlie: I don't dispute what you write, but the year or decade of the decline
is less important to me than the historical and social forces behind it (I
haven't read Hollow Colossus and cannot find an electronic copy). But at some
point in the past 50+ years, the guns-and-butter alliance with the white US
working class was abandoned by those in power and their advisors in favor of a
fighting posture toward the unions, environmentalists, and those championing
the interest of the masses of the US. US workers put up practically no
resistance, and those that did usually lost. Business unionism is certainly
one reason for the defeat.
The reconfiguration of the US into an asset society (today up to 2/3 of the
population own a home), which probably contributes to our malaise. I recall
working for several years in a steel mill organized by Local 13 of the USWA.
There was a feeling of resignation that our high salaries and benefits were
going to fall to foreign steel imports, notably from the Japanese, who had
postwar steel plants rather than prewar plants - I maintained machines that
were about 50 years old. There was an expectation of eventual failure: One
older worker told me that he thought he had enough seniority to keep working
until his mortgage was paid off. The mill closed in the 90s only to become an
issue in the 2012 campaign because Romney's hedge fund "invested" in the plant,
raided the pension funds, and sold off the assets.
Mark
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