What Have We Learned from This

The political debacle of our recent election is and will be the subject of many explanations. That the American people could, after two short years of indecisive efforts to mitigate the damage, return to considerable power the very people responsible for the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression, will elicit many explanations. I want to try to put some pieces together that may offer some insight into what happened.

Politically, I found the fact that Harry Reid, a powerful and rewarding Senate Majority Leader from the small state of Nevada, was nonetheless in great jeopardy from a political unknown and a new small party. What populace would trade the benefits flowing from a powerful politician for a political unknown? The salient fact in this anomaly is that Reid never the less won, but only because of the Black and Latino vote. He got a minority of the white vote.

Another relevant observation can be found in a report by MIT economist David Autor in which he looked at the shifting employment landscape in America. He found that automation has had a far deeper impact on employment than is commonly understood, especially on the middle class. He argues that it is a prime factor in the shrinking middle class in America because the jobs it primarily eliminates are those that have traditionally been held by the middle class, e.g. manufacturing, which he notes is about as productive as it has always been except it uses robots rather than humans. Service jobs, another major category of middle class employment also are shrinking, e.g. grocery clerks replaced by automatic check-out machines. The middle class has been subject to increasing economic stress since the beginning of automation in the 1950s according to Autor.

Putting the political phenomena we have recently been experiencing together with this economic impact on the middle class suggests that white people increasingly sense a diminution of economic and political power and are in a crazy kind of rebellion. The Tea Party, predominantly middle class whites, attacks Wall Street on the one hand and big federal government, which is the only power that could possibly control Wall Street, on the other hand. The fact that the populism that usually accompanies a major economic downturn is conservative this time instead of its usual liberal expression further validates this connection between job loss and the nature of the current political chaos. In this connection Autor argues that outsourcing is a precursor to automation and will be increasingly vulnerable to automation.

The middle class has been generally regarded as the social prerequisite for democracy. In this country the middle class has, since its emergence, been predominantly white. Autor describes a hollowing out process in which professional, e.g. lawyer and managerial jobs are at the high end and low wage jobs such as gardening at the low end and the declining middle class between these two.

These two factors, Reid's political survival courtesy of two minority groups, hence the increasing importance of minorities, and an automation-driven shrinking of the middle class, may be salient factors in the political craziness we are witnessing. A socio-political craziness of this kind, rooted in the fear caused by a relentless economic process can be a very dangerous phenomenon. Think of Germany in the depths of the depression following World War I and paying its former adversaries reparations at the same time. As you see the Far Right, including the Religious Right, emphasize "tradition," i.e. family values, at the expense of the Bill of Rights, think of white retention of power.

But, unfortunately, that is not all. Autor makes it clear that we have not yet seen the full impact of automation. He describes a manufacturing plant in Japan. The plant uses robots to make robots. The plant runs in the dark 24 hours a day. Obviously "the job" is going to have to be vastly reinterpreted or a substitute found. The job has been more than a source of income for most Americans. It is and has been an easily available source of human significance. The psychological trauma of being unemployed, especially long term, will be a source of deep discontent. I read recently of a man's utter despair as he packed up the company tools he had used for 15 years, to be shipped to his company's replacement plant in China.

It is, in my judgment, incumbent on progressives to develop and vigorously promote antidotes to this impending disaster. We must not be dissuaded by accusations of socialism or social planning, generally from those who have no idea of what they are talking about. I was struck by FDR's inclusion of the word "planning" in his 1932 nomination acceptance speech. We have been so heavily indoctrinated by the Right, especially since Ronald Reagan, that many view the term as subversive.

The impact of technology on humanity, of which automation is an instance, needs to be a major focus in the development of a progressive perspective.

As I finished this article I stumbled upon an excellent article by Chris Hedges on his analysis of the fundamental message of the recent election, which sees fascism at work in the political craziness. I strongly recommend reading Chris' article titled "A Recipe for Fascism", which can be found at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_recipe_for_fascism_20101108/

Bob Newhard