On 02/01/2014 03:02 PM, Michael H Goldhaber wrote:
Sadly, Brian misspoke (or miswrote)
Indeed I misspoke - or deluded myself? A moment of wish-fulfillment?
The interesting thing is that the neighboring airport town of SeaTac
passed a 15-dollar minimum wage law. It was challenged and a judge ruled
it couldn't apply to some 4000+ airport employees, but only to about
1600 hotel and parking lot workers. However the momentum then got going
for similar campaigns such as the one you can see at 15now.org, which
Kshama Sawant supports. Well, huge numbers of people in the US support
it and every experience of victory builds that support.
I too was struck by the idea in Orsan's post, that we may see the rise
of a new kind of ruling class, based on sheer coercive power rather than
money. Certainly we are already seeing a new kind of money-power: both
transnational corporations and billionaires have gained agency since
2008, in a situation where there are almost no remaining barriers to the
movement and investment of capital. You can see them going wild all over
the planet, especially outside the former core countries. However, dark
predictions about the future are by this point, just boring. If nothing
changes the future is obviously dark.
The conclusion from the Occupy movement was that we need organization.
Corporate earnings are at an all-time high, and wages are immobile. I
can't imagine that Silicon Valley engineers will unionize in any
progressive way that would go beyond their specific interests. I can
imagine that some of them would get radicalized joining a cross-class
coalition that would also further their own interests. These minimum
wage campaigns are not negligible. They are one of the few chances out
there to make left politics real again. All other progressive causes can
only benefit.
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