I have no conception of the process by which major decision are reached among the ruling elites, or even if such decisions are ever actually made. I have alwyas been rather annoyed by discourse that seems to assume some formal Central Committee of the Ruling Class determines the general direction of natonal policy. I am, then, going to intensely annoy myself in what follows because I'm afraid that is the flavor as it were of what follows.
It is not only many left intellectuals but many 'establishment' intellectuals and political leaders of the last half century who, remembering The Great Depression, labord under the belief that econimc misery produces mass resistance. During The Inflation of the '70s a columnist in Newsweek rationalized that inflation with the argument that had a wage reduction of that magnitude been imposed on u.s. workers "blood would run in the streets." Whether that might have been the case in 1945 I do not know, but apparently the inflation began the task of taming the u.s. working class. The procesds made a leap with the slump imposed by Volcker at the end of the Carter Administration and the subsequent crushing of the Controllers' strike by Reagan and the second dip of that "double-dip recession." It went into high gear with the neutralizing of the great industrial unions (autos, steel, rubbere, etc) during the "give-back" period and the other neoliberal policies inaugurated during the Carter and Reagan Administrations.Meanwhile Carter had begunb the processs of 'testing' and eventually (under Bush and Clinton) liquidating the "Vietnam Sydnrome"s limitations on an aggressive u.s. diplomatic and military policy in the Middle East and elsewhere. And so forth, The U.S.ruling class, as well as those of the Eurozoe, had lost all fear, all sense of limitation on its powers. And apparently it no longer fears that deprivation will energize working-class reactions. Put another way, we are learnning that it is not the present period of capitalist strength and working-class weakness that is an aberration calling for explanation. Rather, the aberraton was in that half-century after 1929 of working-class strength, ending with the slump of 1974-5. We have now returned to normalcy. Increasing uncertainty of life, absence of a "safety net," virtual abolition of "benefits," all without triggering any effective resistance. This too will pass, but we don't know how. We can't simply will its end by posting stories of the widkedness of capitalists or the misery of workers. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
