Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
Where is the evidence that the present situation is not stable? The caste systems - and we do live in one - have been known to endure for centuries (compared to them, egalitarian societies are ephemeral flashes.) The steep pyramid of ruling class/praetorian guard/token citizenry/rabble appears to be rather resilient. The talent percolates up, performs its duty, and then sinks down, like bubbles in the glass of cold Guinness. Let's make a website initiatives notwithstanding, there is nothing on the horizon of reality that can disturb the ale. It's hard to see anything short of serious genetic engineering that would make egalitarian societies persist, and genetic engineers are not paid to work on that. On 1/22/14 16:03 , Brian Holmes wrote: I think the keyword of systemic change already exists: political ecology. There are many people working in that direction. But the # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
On Jan 21, 2014 11:48 PM, Keith Sanborn mrz...@panix.com wrote: Where do your numbers come from! Here are some numbers compiled from the NTSB. http://www.aopa.org/About-AOPA/Statistical-Reference-Guide/General-Aviation-Safety-Record-Current-and-Historic.aspx -mtw # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
Though there are ups and downs, the numbers published here do support your interpretation of a general downward trend. On Jan 23, 2014, at 6:33 AM, Matthew White m...@vne.net wrote: On Jan 21, 2014 11:48 PM, Keith Sanborn mrz...@panix.com wrote: Where do your numbers come from! Here are some numbers compiled from the NTSB. http://www.aopa.org/About-AOPA/Statistical-Reference-Guide/General-Aviation-Safety-Record-Current-and-Historic.aspx ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
Hello, Two points here from Brian worth extending a bit further in this discussion because they seem to me critical if we are ever going to move beyond the social, governmental and corporate paradigms assembled by what he calls the full-fledged transnational capitalist class.” And it is a class with all the apparatuses to insure a constantly ascendent self-interested position within the various forms of political turbulence an social unrest circling the globe. In the U.S. this class has mastered the art of what Marcuse called “repressive sublimation.” What this boils down to an internalising the kind of false consciousness thats says ‘we can’t enable REAL change because hope is just around the corner; a better day is coming. Vote for Obama’ Which is why a change is never gonna come, ain’t gonna happen until certain realities are squarely faced, not just by fringe figures like ourselves but by much broader swathes of society. Amazingly, 50 years after the political movements of the 60s, in the U.S., little has changed in terms of the structural dynamics that shape political discourse. So much of what was said back then, prescient and profound, has not been transferred organizationally. It’s taught in universities but is invariably diluted as it makes it way of the institutional media ladder. So we find ourselves in the position where, unfortunately, there is very solid line of ideological continuity from the days of McCarthyism to the right-wing rants of the Tea Party; the Koch Bros. et al fund right-wing-structures and organisations that do more than just snipe from the side lines. America’s great public intellectuals (and there are many) are marginalised and left to preach to the choir and so it is difficult to connect the discursive dots with a praxis that powerfully challenges the dominant political hierarchies. Such a connection would foster a diversity of public spheres in which, as Brian posits, Societies are articulated by the relation between knowledge and practice.” good night allan # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
Hello, Thanks Brian for the snapshot history lesson; what seems to be glossed over in your letter is this salient point: Not only in California, but across the world there are new oligarchies who dispose (of us) more or less as they please. Unlike the student movements of 2009, I don't think this thing is going to fall in some passionate spontaneous coming insurrection. Precisely, and exactly what kind of planning/organizing/conceptualizing is necessary (or possible) not simply as a defense against the OS of a corporate totalitarianism but to envision and plan a new trajectory of possibilities altogether? If we can't, decisively, move beyond the Democrats vs. Republicans paradigm then we can rest assured that the Google buses will just keep coming (to a bus stop near you). best allan # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
I have certainly seen these changes during the past eight years that I have lived in California, near Sacramento. However, the green initiatives cannot be simply written off that way considering our miserable air quality, the water rationing that has just started, the loss of pollinating insects, and our struggles to resist large-scale fracking. All of these are important not just for quality of human life, but for agriculture. The agricultural economy of California is as important as the tech, not only for the state, but for the US food supply, and it has been carried out in an unsustainable way for far too long. The ignorance of techno-oligarchs about how the rest of the state lives doesn't help either, because LA, SF and those other coastal areas ask for ever more water each year. I'm not sure yet where the growing frustration with inequality in California will take us, but my impression is that more and more people around me are reaching a limit. That could lead to a stronger grassroots movement, or it could lead to people just leaving the state. If the drought continues into late 2014, some areas of the state may become simply unlivable, either because they have no water, or because water and food have become too expensive. So migration rather than revolution may be the most likely future. I suppose an exodus might simply reinforce the growing inequality in California, as those in the 99% who can afford to, leave, and those who can't, starve. The above article makes valuable points, but leaves out some very important environmental issues. Further it demonizes the environmental movement and ignores the very real problems that movement tries to address. On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Geert Lovink ge...@xs4all.nl wrote: (I got this from Thorsten Schilling, it reminded me of the recent attacks on the Google busses in SF /geert) California's New Feudalism Benefits a Few at the Expense of the Multitude by Joel Kotkin 10/05/2013 ... -- Kim De Vries http://kdevries.net/blog/ # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
Hi, On Wed, 22 Jan 2014, allan siegel wrote: Thanks Brian for the snapshot history lesson; +1 Precisely,and exactly what kind of planning/organizing/conceptualizing is necessary (or possible) I'd like to pint to two sources of possibility and/or hope: http://georgiebc.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/binding-chaos/ http://guymcpherson.com/2013/12/hackers-ethic-for-the-world-after-collapse/ Vesna -- The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. http://becha.home.xs4all.nl # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
On 01/22/2014 03:06 AM, allan siegel wrote: exactly what kind of planning/organizing/conceptualizing is necessary (or possible) not simply as a defense against the OS of a corporate totalitarianism but to envision and plan a new trajectory of possibilities altogether? Allan, always so interesting to dialogue with you, and with all the others respondents to this thread - I don't think any alternative will be possible until certain realities are squarely faced, not just by fringe figures like ourselves but by much broader swathes of society. The flight of capital from the national welfare and developmental states in the 1970s has led to the formation of full-fledged transnational capitalist class, which has been described very well by people like Leslie Sklair and especially William Robinson (of UC Santa Barbara, kudos to him). The so-called offshore operations of the TCC ultimately transformed the world economy and now, everywhere is offshore, ie, every country and region offers prime conditions for capital accumulation. The result is the formation of oligarchies. We don't live in democracies, we live under oligarchies who control tremendous human resources and technological power via finance and other knowledge-intensive means. The new oligarchies have captured decisive influence over the former national states and mobilized their police, secret service and military forces in their defence. Their reign, though it appears under quite different guises depending on where you are, is extremely sophisticated and it's supported by almost everyone who gets a piece of the action (the globalizing technocrats and bureacrats, as Sklair puts it). Unlimited global trade is what they're all about. They've been able to use the 2008 crisis to shift capital toward the newly developing regions, and in this way, turbocharge an already accelerated world economy. Instead of human-oriented development, we have a hyper-competititive rush toward infinite accumulation, currently supported by the printing of money on unprecedented scales. Narco-violence, local ganglands, fundamentalism and brutal fascism all flourish around the edges of this juggernaut, but they're not stopping its development. If you want an image of the TCC in all its banality, look at the unbelievable numbers of unbelievably wealthy-looking yachts in any Carribean or Mediterranean harbor, and probably also in San Francisco or Newport Beach. Runaway industrial development with no heed for tomorrow buys the TCC the only award they can seem to conceive. The endgame of such fun in the sun is the looming prospect of mass extinction due to climate change in the Anthropocene. Societies are articulated by the relation between knowledge and practice. Neither moaning about the decline of the unions nor withdrawing to some romantic exodus will change anything. To achieve substantial change, large numbers of those who occupy articulatory and directive functions in society (what Gramsci called organic intellectuals, whether inside or outside the universities) would have to identify this situation and make it a priority both to combat it and to devise alternatives, complete with the adequate political and instrumental means to acheive them. That means giving up the illusion that the current rule of law and system of political representation constitute adequate means of democratic governance. They don't. So pressing for substantial change is tantamount to advocating revolution. For the past few years I have been developing this viewpoint in every context that I occupy. Sadly, I must report that up to now, almost no one has been interested. Left-leaning intellectuals are still preoccupied by individual liberation, minority and sectoral rights claims, the ghosts of working-class struggles, and anarchist longings for direct democracy. All of those have been very important, but none of the current oppositional discourses can marshall the sophistication, depth, durability and power to confront the transnational capitalist class. An alternative is not something that one fabricates on the fly, in a study or an artwork or or a hacklab or an affinity group or a church or a social center, even if all of those can be part of it. To make it real would require a large-scale articulation of theory and practice, extending into mainstream institutions even while outstripping and transforming them. Obviously it's easier said than done, but without saying it you can't get anywhere. The silence of the intellectuals is the new treason of the clercs. I think the keyword of systemic change already exists: political ecology. There are many people working in that direction. But the universities, cultural systems, professional association (including unions) and press/media apparatuses are still massively captured by the dream of belonging to the transnational capitalist class, or mired in some vague nostalgia for the
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
In 2009 I had a visceral experience of the world described in this post. As a former Californian I had long since understood that I was priced out of my home state and would never again live in the city of San Francisco (which anyway was losing its charms as the monoculture set it). It is a strange experience to move through the places you grew up, those beautiful landscapes with nature so near, and realize that to have a productive life in your old home you would have to work for a corporation, or start promoting yourself like mad, or sink your all in some speculative venture for which I obviously have no taste. But hey, whatever, I am privileged, I could always move back to the Napa Valley house that my family built with our own hands on land that costed nothing at the time and now is protected from impossible taxes by prop 13. The problem, as this article points out, is what actually happened to Californian society. By 2009 the UC student movements had revealed the tuition and loan scam that grew right along with the housing bubble, as the distortion, or really, logical conclusion of the middle class desire of having it all. While you dream that carefully fabricated dream, the oligarchy has it rigged to rip you off. I went to CA out of enthusiasm for the movements, to talk in universities and on soapboxes and organize stuff with the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest. My visit to Santa Barbara at the heart of the missile producing district (don't kid yourself that iPads are the only game in town) revealed to me the extent of the disaster. Nested everywhere in small dense gritty pockets among the opulent beachside consumer wealth were the taco shacks, laundromats and survival shops of the mostly Latino underclass, busting their asses under conditions of structural scorn to provide the insouciance of the masters. On campus, the fiction of equality covered vast gaps, between the tenured profs and adminstrators and absolutely anyone else, first of all (sorry friends, but you are the upper class and probably hypocrites to boot, though I know in reality many of you too are deep in a trap whose details you might want to explain). Second of all, however, on a deeper and more significant level, you realize that military science dominates these universities and big corporate tech, medical and entertainment money comes hard on its heels, imposing priories that everyone else accepts as the price of their little (and maybe illusory) piece of a pie that has lost is sweetness, substituted by some addictive patented hook to haul you in line and sinker. Bad news. The class hierarchy is a little more complicated than this author makes out and it should be analyzed better, but in the same spirit. Revolts are increasingly possible but the police are increasingly vicious. Computers have served to create a financially driven global economy that the missiles protect. Not only in California, but across the world there are new oligarchies who dispose (of us) more or less as they please. Unlike the student movements of 2009, I don't think this thing is going to fall in some passionate spontaneous coming insurrection. The revolution has to be planned, what's more, in the broad daylight of the NSA technologies. If my professor colleagues are stung by what I have said about them, there is a solution. Start planning. Best, Brian On Monday, January 20, 2014, Geert Lovink ge...@xs4all.nl wrote: (I got this from Thorsten Schilling, it reminded me of the recent attacks on the Google busses in SF /geert) California?s New Feudalism Benefits a Few at the Expense of the Multitude by Joel Kotkin 10/05/2013 http://www.newgeography.com/content/003973-california-s-new-feudalism-benefits-a-few-expense-multitude California has been the source of much innovation, from agribusiness and oil to fashion and the digital world. Historically much richer than the rest of the country, it was also the birthplace, along with Levittown, of the mass-produced suburb, freeways, much of our modern entrepreneurial culture, and of course mass entertainment. For most of a century, for both better and worse, California has defined progress, not only for America but for the world. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
One detail, which begs others: California was NOT historically the birthplace of mass entertainment. That dubious honor belongs to the combined forces of NY and NJ. The industry moved west to avoid the grip of the motion picture patents trust, for better year round conditions for filming outside and in order to better bootleg existing product. I wonder how many other details are incorrect in this essay? Not that the basic narrative of stabilizing class divisions and downward mobility is not true. The elephants in the room are the breaking of the unions (starting with Reagan's breaking of the air-traffic controllers, a blow still being felt both as implied threat and lowered safety of air travel in the us) and the off-shoring of the jobs in the industries where unions were strongest. The new oligarchs are frequently Randians, radical right libertarians, when they are not Straussian elitists. They are hardly conservatives, a term which has grown both useless and deceptive as it covers the radical right aggressions of the Koch brothers with the mask of classical old school stability and respectability. Defending traditional values like the rule of elites through conscious mass-deception, slavery and wage slavery, racism, the relegation of non-heteronormative behavior to pariah status and the repression of women to the biological determinism of child bearing along with corporate personhood. Even this portrayal of things in Ronnie's home state is vastly understated. On Jan 21, 2014, at 5:05 PM, Brian Holmes bhcontinentaldr...@gmail.com wrote: In 2009 I had a visceral experience of the world described in this post. ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
The elephants in the room are the breaking of the unions (starting with Reagan's breaking of the air-traffic controllers, a blow still being felt both as implied threat and lowered safety of air travel in the us) In absolute numbers, fatalities have declined significantly since the strike in ’81. Proportionally, it’s even greater when considered in terms of fatalities per mile travelled. So if we’re going to accept a causal link between breaking the union and air traffic safety results, our conclusion must be “good thing Reagan broke PATCO.” Presumably, that’s not the conclusion to be drawn, though….correct? We just simply can’t blame union busting for technologically-driven reductions in the number of jobs. I don’t know that anyone on this list getting on a plane would prefer an ATC system without GPS and automation and collision avoidance systems, even though those systems cost some controllers their jobs. Eric # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
yes,keith, brian, javier -Hollywood started in Edison, NJ, and Astoria, Queens. (But full industrialization happened as you describe, out west.) The crushing of unionism is not really traceable to the attack on PATCO, though it was a signal event in ending the historic compromise of labor and industry, much like Thatcher's destruction of the miners and scargill, which did lead to the end of mining (or anything aside from financials) as a major industry in UK. But note that PATCO was not actually a union and supported Reagan's election. The rebirth of union-like activity, such as it is, is also in large measure traceable to movements in low-wage servce industries like Justice for Janitors in Cal. Brian, thanks for reminding us that California is home of the military-industrial-educational complex. --- - unless I am reading something incorrectly in my haste, Kotkin links the real-estate booms to liberals? H AH -And doesn't link the destruction of Caliifornia education K throughgrad, and the decline of state infrastructure spending, to Howard Jarvis and his Prop 13? And the rule of the state by Reagan, Deukmejian et al in the 80s? -his memes are so distorted it would require a full-length rebuttal to his framing. -Orange County (he's paid by the Orange County Register conservative Chapman college) = Republicanland. I like the idea of a Surgeon General's warning. (But stay away from the Daily Beast!) martha hasty rosler On Jan 21, 2014, at 1:17 PM, Keith Sanborn mrz...@panix.com wrote: One detail, which begs others: California was NOT historically the birthplace of mass entertainment. That dubious honor belongs to the combined forces of NY and NJ. The industry moved west to avoid the grip of the motion picture patents trust, for better year round conditions for filming outside and in order to better bootleg existing product. I wonder how many other details are incorrect in this essay? Not that the basic narrative of stabilizing class divisions and downward mobility is not true. The elephants in the room are the breaking of the unions (starting with Reagan's breaking of the air-traffic controllers, a blow still being felt both as implied threat and lowered safety of air travel in the us) and the off-shoring of the jobs in the industries where unions were strongest. ... please do not add this address to announcement lists # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
ah, I should not butt in without getting me ducks in order. Unlike all the fabulously articulate nettimers, I only have time for sloppy seat-of-pants writing. SO apoogies for what will be a RANT, adnd moreoever flinging at ya thinks you must already know Yes, my memory of PATCO as a mere labor association did not serve me well. (and didn't say they endorsed Reagan in his second term, did I? He fired em in 1981! Second term was supposed to be dedicated to taking out Nicaragua and then presumably Cuba) PATCO had changed its status from a professionall org to a union, but it did not get ITS ducks in order. It failed to gain solidarity from other unions, including, i think, the pilots. They believed they were, in effect, part of the aristocracy of labor, though not in the guild sense. Having mostly come from the miltary, they no doubt identified with Republicans, and thought they were too essential to fire. but it was ILLEGAL for them to strike. (As to endangering the public, that likelihood, or possibility, about which i said nothing, is too far in the past to argue over now.) If their firing really spooked the labor movement, it was because labor had been led for decades by consensus leaders rather than miltant ones. I remember an ad with (I think) George Meany, sitting in a chair chomping on a cigar, saying he'd never walked a picket line in his life. Business unionism The first link that popped up when I google- searched for PATCO: http://monthlyreview.org/2012/03/01/reviving-the-strike-in-the-shadow-of-patco But whether you consider it causal or not is a moot point; it clearly marks an historical watershed and this is generally agreed well, on that formulation, I have to sort-of agree, but there is a thicker' story to be told. In other words, we have to moot it. The beginning of the end for organized labor was the emergence of neoliberal strategies even in midst of Carter's time in office and which emerged fully in Reagan's 8 years in office. Industrial unionism (private sector) was declining as industrial production declined and as management followed the runaway shop strategy. [PATCO was a federal-workers' union of professionals, of course, of something over 15k members] . Reagan could act against PATCO because the decision to reinstitute out-and-out class war while also amping up the Nixonian Southern strategy, of appealing to traditional working-class values?racism, patriarchalism, homophobia, religion, militarism, nationalism, anti-urbanism ? as against elites and counterculture values, divided the working class (values voters) and separated it from its middle class allies? though it did not succeed in destroying union allegiance, but led to idiotic electoral choices (thus, the argument over Tom Frank's What's the Matter with Kan sas?, which i don't have time for here. you vote your pocket book when necessary but abandon an unpromising political leadership when the other side can promise bread and values) (Cf Chris Christie 's [popularity in NJ: voters like the narrative of bluster cum pragmatism, as they liked Reagan's Morning in America narrative). The oil shock of 1973 shook labor relations as its shook the auto industry, and the movement south of the auto industry, the incursion of Japanese and germn manufacturers to the officially antiunion South led to concessionary bargaining?. making it clear that labor was losing strength even on its own behalf, let alone on behalf of Democratic candidates. The Repubs. abandoned their pet union, the Teamsters, and the historic compromise, which had help establish pattern bargaining in industries like auto, died. The neoliberal/Republican strategy took advantage of the fact that longstanding Congressional comity could result in the successful institution of more and more of the anti-labor agenda, until organized labor was going to die of a thousand cuts. And then we got NAFTA under Clinton, which also brought the decision to end Congressional comity and mutual back-scratching under Gingrich and which has been im its fullest flower since Obama's election. So, back to the rhetoric of 'the makers and takers,' the 'usses' and the 'thems,' the lazy poor?. all of which have resonance in the rural redoubts of the old south, including the top tier, lIke Ky and W.Va. The war against labor is sold as the war against Others: poor people of color (Reagan's welfare queens), but that is adjustable to different populations, so that the working class does not see it as class warfare but a war of workers vs lumpen (and liberals, asin the silky narrative of the professor whose obfuscatory blog on california p rompted all this). Meanwhile, in that period, the service sector unions like SEIU were on the rise (albeit with disastrous, ongoing internecine battles). The 'war' against unionism was larger than any attack on actual union activity; private and public sector unions were and have been played off
nettime The Californian Reality (from: New Geography)
(I got this from Thorsten Schilling, it reminded me of the recent attacks on the Google busses in SF /geert) California’s New Feudalism Benefits a Few at the Expense of the Multitude by Joel Kotkin 10/05/2013 http://www.newgeography.com/content/003973-california-s-new-feudalism-benefits-a-few-expense-multitude California has been the source of much innovation, from agribusiness and oil to fashion and the digital world. Historically much richer than the rest of the country, it was also the birthplace, along with Levittown, of the mass-produced suburb, freeways, much of our modern entrepreneurial culture, and of course mass entertainment. For most of a century, for both better and worse, California has defined progress, not only for America but for the world. As late as the 80s, California was democratic in a fundamental sense, a place for outsiders and, increasingly, immigrants—roughly 60 percent of the population was considered middle class. Now, instead of a land of opportunity, California has become increasingly feudal. According to recent census estimates, the state suffers some of the highest levels of inequality in the country. By some estimates, the state’s level of inequality compares with that of such global models as the Dominican Republic, Gambia, and the Republic of the Congo. At the same time, the Golden State now suffers the highest level of poverty in the country—23.5 percent compared to 16 percent nationally—worse than long-term hard luck cases like Mississippi. It is also now home to roughly one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, almost three times its proportion of the nation’s population. Like medieval serfs, increasing numbers of Californians are downwardly mobile, and doing worse than their parents: native born Latinos actually have shorter lifespans than their parents, according to one recent report. Nor are things expected to get better any time soon. According to a recent Hoover Institution survey, most Californians expect their incomes to stagnate in the coming six months, a sense widely shared among the young, whites, Latinos, females, and the less educated. Some of these trends can be found nationwide, but they have become pronounced and are metastasizing more quickly in the Golden State. As late as the 80s, the state was about as egalitarian as the rest of the country. Now, for the first time in decades, the middle class is a minority, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The Role of the Tech Oligarchs. California produces more new billionaires than any place this side of oligarchic Russia or crony capitalist China. By some estimates the Golden State is home to one out of every nine of the world’s billionaires. In 2011 the state was home to 90 billionaires, 20 more than second place New York and more than twice as many as booming Texas. The state’s digital oligarchy, surely without intention, is increasingly driving the state’s lurch towards feudalism. Silicon Valley’s wealth reflects the fortunes of a handful of companies that dominate an information economy that itself is increasingly oligopolistic. In contrast to the traditionally conservative or libertarian ethos of the entrepreneurial class, the oligarchy is increasingly allied with the nominally populist Democratic Party and its regulatory agenda. Along with the public sector, Hollywood, and their media claque, they present California as “the spiritual inspiration” for modern “progressives” across the country. Through their embrace of and financial support for the state’s regulatory regime, the oligarchs have made job creation in non tech-businesses—manufacturing, energy, agriculture—increasingly difficult through “green energy” initiatives that are also sure to boost already high utility costs. One critic, state Democratic Senator Roderick Wright from heavily minority Inglewood, compares the state’s regulatory regime to the “vig” or high interest charged by the Mafia, calling it a major reason for disinvestment in many industries. Yet even in Silicon Valley, the expansion of prosperity has been extraordinarily limited. Due to enormous losses suffered in the current tech bubble, tech job creation in Silicon Valley has barely reached its 2000 level. In contrast, previous tech booms, such as the one in the 90s, doubled the ranks of the tech community. Some, like UC Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti, advance the dubious claim that those jobs are more stable than those created in Texas. But even if we concede that point for the moment, the Valley’s growth primarily benefits its denizens but not most Californians. Since the recession, California remains down something like 500,000 jobs, a 3.5 percent loss, while its Lone Star rival has boosted its employment by a remarkable 931,000, a gain of more than 9 percent. Much of this has to do with the changing nature of California’s increasingly elite-driven economy. Back in the 80s
