ckaihatsu
25th July 2009, 09:12
play-by-play analysis of classic right-wing scare-mongering and attacking of the working class Re: [anticapdiscuss] re: draft reply to Samuelson, help?
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:20 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> By
> Robert J. Samuelson
> | NEWSWEEK
> Published Jun 20, 2009
> From the magazine issue dated Jun 29, 2009
>
>
>
> Raised in an individualistic culture, Americans dislike the concept of the
> "welfare state" and do not use the term. But make no mistake, the United
> States has a welfare state, and its future is precarious.
This introduction is used to destabilize the reader and turn us into fence-sitters on the topic of social services provided by the state, which use public funds. (In other words, it takes a distasteful political term and surprises us by flipping into a *validation* of the term, attempting to swiftly get on our good side which is pro-social-services. It then uses a scare tactic, saying that the future of social services is precarious, trying to flip us onto *his* side which he is trying to present as being "pro-welfare" / "pro-social-services". However, let's see what he *actually* addresses in this theme:
> The true
> significance of the General Motors bankruptcy lies more with this welfare
> state than with the battered condition of American capitalism.
This is his thesis statement for the entire article. With this thesis he is attempting to *nationalize* what is ultimately an *international* problem with the current mode of production, capitalism.
If he can successfully convince the reader that this is merely a problem of nationalistic mis-management then he successfully *legitimizes* the entire economic framework / machinery of capitalism, which the reader would tacitly see as legitimate and allow to continue, perhaps only grumbling about some "bad decisions" or "bad eggs" that should be replaced.
Samuelson uses this thesis statement quickly, to take aim at the component of government spending that he is attacking -- *but* -- he then just as quickly moves *off* of the ideological / opinionated tack, and shifts to bolster his credibility right away by introducing several paragraphs of relatively objective, neutrally presented facts (I *assume* they're facts), though from a nationalistic perspective:
> Broadly speaking, the U.S. welfare system divides into two parts—the
> private, administered by firms; and the public, provided by government. Both
> are besieged: private companies by intense competitive pressures; government
> by rising debt and taxes. GM exemplified the large corporation as private
> welfare state. In contracts with the United Auto Workers, GM promised high
> wages, lifetime employment, generous pensions and comprehensive health
> insurance. All this is now ancient history: new workers get skimpier
> benefits.
> As metaphor, GM's bankruptcy marks the passage of this model. Companies
> still provide welfare benefits to attract and retain skilled workers. But
> these shelters against insecurity are growing flimsier. Career jobs remain,
> but lifetime job guarantees—formal or informal—are gone. Last year, about 50
> percent of male workers ages 5020to 54 had been with the same employer at
> least 10 years; in 1983, that was 62 percent.
> Health insurance and pensions tell similar stories. In 2007,
> employer-provided insurance covered 177 million Americans, 59.3 percent of
> the population; in 1999, coverage was 63.9 percent. Since 1980, companies
> have gradually moved from "defined benefit" to "defined contribution"
> pensions, notably 401(k)s. Defined benefit plans provided guaranteed monthly
> payments; defined contribution plans—just putting money into a pot—make
> workers responsible for managing retirement savings.
> What most Americans identify as government "welfare" are payments to single
> mothers, food stamps and (perhaps) Medi-caid, the federal-state
> health-insurance program for the poor. But that's not the half of it. Since
> 1960, government has changed radically. Then, 52 percent of federal spending
> went for defense, 26 percent for "payments to individuals"—the welfare
> state. By 2008, 61 percent went for " payments to individuals," 21 percent
> for defense.
> Social Security and Medicare—programs for the elderly—represented the lion's
> share: $1 trillion in 2008. Most Americans don't consider these programs
> "welfare," but they are. Benefits are paid mainly by present taxes; there's
> little "saving" for future benefits; Congress can alter benefits whenever it
> wants. If that's not welfare, what would be?
> Pressures on private and public welfare won't abate. The economic conditions
> that encouraged corporate welfare have long since vanished. In 1955, GM,
> Ford and Chrysler controlled 95 percent of U.S. light-vehicle sales. With
> market dominance and technological leadership, the "Big Three" assumed they
> could pass along the costs of job guarantees, high wages and benefits to
> consumers.
> Eager to defuse the class warfare of the 1930s—and to avoid
> unionization—many U.S. companies imitated the model. They, too, believed
> that competition would be limited and technological change could be
> controlled. These conceits are gone (in 2008, the Big Three's market share
> was 48 percent—and dropping). Now companies are hypersensitive to
> competitive and economic threats. A survey of 141 major companies by the
> consulting firm Watson Wyatt found that 72 percent have recently cut jobs,
> 21 percent reduced salaries and 22 percent curtailed 401(k) contributions.
> In theory, expanding public welfare could offset eroding private welfare.
> President Obama's health-care proposal reflects that logic. The trouble is
> that the public sector also faces enormous cost pressures, driven by an
> aging population and rising health costs. The Congressional Budget Office
> projects the federal debt to double as a share of the economy (gross
> domestic product) to about 80 percent of GDP by 2019.
> Any sober examination of figures like these suggests that the system has
> promised more than it can realistically deliver. We are borrowing not to
> finance investment in the future but to pay for today's welfare—present
> consumption.
> Sooner or later, the huge debt will weaken the economy.
Here is where he resumes his ideological line -- the problem with the debt is *not* a humanistic one, wherein we should wonder if the government is going to remain pro-social-services -- instead he advances the problem, spending on the welfare state, as having the problematic *result* of undermining "the economy". Again he is shifting the blame *away* from the capitalist system itself, onto national policy, but this time from a different angle -- he is now confusing cause with effect, saying that bad policy makes for bad economics, when in fact we know that capitalism *as a whole*, *worldwide* is breaking down, *thereby* putting government (and private sector) human-welfare-related policies under increased pressures, leading to cutbacks.
> Nor
> would paying for all promised benefits with higher taxes be desirable. Big
> increases in either debt or taxes risk depressing economic growth, making it
> harder yet to pay promised benefits.
(More of the same here.) He is now returning to the heart of his thesis, swinging back around to his position of taking aim at social services spending. This is a classic attack on the working class using the boogeyman scare tactic of "inflation" -- these ideologues present social services spending as somehow being so much more damaging to the economy than military spending.
> The U.S. welfare state is inevitably weakening; insecurity is rising. The
> sensible thing would be to de cide which forms of public welfare are needed
> to protect the vulnerable and to begin paring others.
Why not just cut (imperialist) military spending? His use of the phrase "protect the vulnerable" elicits a stripped-down, bare-essentials mentality that evokes a "circle the wagons" mindset in the reader. The choice of phrase also deftly legitimizes "security", or military spending, despite the recent memory of the *failure* of the domestic security apparatus on the day of 9-11-2001.
> Our inaction poses
> another dreary parallel with GM. It was obvious a quarter century ago that
> GM the auto company could not support GM the welfare state. But the union
> wouldn't surrender benefits, and the company acquiesced. Inertia prevailed,
> and the reckoning came. The same cycle, repeated on a national scale with
> sums many multiples higher, would be correspondingly more fearsome.
> Samuelson is The author of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath.
He finishes with a full-blown, right-wing attack on the unions as being the subversives of the economy, the key culprits and scapegoats for what is, in reality, a sclerotic economic system that is forcing suffering on the whole world, whether they're unionized or not.
This is distinctly a call-to-arms against workers' rights, fully resting blame on workers for the fall of GM and for the nation-in-the-red as a whole. The final sentence implicitly legitimizes the multi-trillion-dollar financial bailout of the corporations, blithely ignoring the four-decades-long, ongoing attack on workers' compensation -- hardly a "pro-social-welfare" position...!
Chris
--
--
___
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www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162
Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
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-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:20 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> By
> Robert J. Samuelson
> | NEWSWEEK
> Published Jun 20, 2009
> From the magazine issue dated Jun 29, 2009
>
>
>
> Raised in an individualistic culture, Americans dislike the concept of the
> "welfare state" and do not use the term. But make no mistake, the United
> States has a welfare state, and its future is precarious.
This introduction is used to destabilize the reader and turn us into fence-sitters on the topic of social services provided by the state, which use public funds. (In other words, it takes a distasteful political term and surprises us by flipping into a *validation* of the term, attempting to swiftly get on our good side which is pro-social-services. It then uses a scare tactic, saying that the future of social services is precarious, trying to flip us onto *his* side which he is trying to present as being "pro-welfare" / "pro-social-services". However, let's see what he *actually* addresses in this theme:
> The true
> significance of the General Motors bankruptcy lies more with this welfare
> state than with the battered condition of American capitalism.
This is his thesis statement for the entire article. With this thesis he is attempting to *nationalize* what is ultimately an *international* problem with the current mode of production, capitalism.
If he can successfully convince the reader that this is merely a problem of nationalistic mis-management then he successfully *legitimizes* the entire economic framework / machinery of capitalism, which the reader would tacitly see as legitimate and allow to continue, perhaps only grumbling about some "bad decisions" or "bad eggs" that should be replaced.
Samuelson uses this thesis statement quickly, to take aim at the component of government spending that he is attacking -- *but* -- he then just as quickly moves *off* of the ideological / opinionated tack, and shifts to bolster his credibility right away by introducing several paragraphs of relatively objective, neutrally presented facts (I *assume* they're facts), though from a nationalistic perspective:
> Broadly speaking, the U.S. welfare system divides into two parts—the
> private, administered by firms; and the public, provided by government. Both
> are besieged: private companies by intense competitive pressures; government
> by rising debt and taxes. GM exemplified the large corporation as private
> welfare state. In contracts with the United Auto Workers, GM promised high
> wages, lifetime employment, generous pensions and comprehensive health
> insurance. All this is now ancient history: new workers get skimpier
> benefits.
> As metaphor, GM's bankruptcy marks the passage of this model. Companies
> still provide welfare benefits to attract and retain skilled workers. But
> these shelters against insecurity are growing flimsier. Career jobs remain,
> but lifetime job guarantees—formal or informal—are gone. Last year, about 50
> percent of male workers ages 5020to 54 had been with the same employer at
> least 10 years; in 1983, that was 62 percent.
> Health insurance and pensions tell similar stories. In 2007,
> employer-provided insurance covered 177 million Americans, 59.3 percent of
> the population; in 1999, coverage was 63.9 percent. Since 1980, companies
> have gradually moved from "defined benefit" to "defined contribution"
> pensions, notably 401(k)s. Defined benefit plans provided guaranteed monthly
> payments; defined contribution plans—just putting money into a pot—make
> workers responsible for managing retirement savings.
> What most Americans identify as government "welfare" are payments to single
> mothers, food stamps and (perhaps) Medi-caid, the federal-state
> health-insurance program for the poor. But that's not the half of it. Since
> 1960, government has changed radically. Then, 52 percent of federal spending
> went for defense, 26 percent for "payments to individuals"—the welfare
> state. By 2008, 61 percent went for " payments to individuals," 21 percent
> for defense.
> Social Security and Medicare—programs for the elderly—represented the lion's
> share: $1 trillion in 2008. Most Americans don't consider these programs
> "welfare," but they are. Benefits are paid mainly by present taxes; there's
> little "saving" for future benefits; Congress can alter benefits whenever it
> wants. If that's not welfare, what would be?
> Pressures on private and public welfare won't abate. The economic conditions
> that encouraged corporate welfare have long since vanished. In 1955, GM,
> Ford and Chrysler controlled 95 percent of U.S. light-vehicle sales. With
> market dominance and technological leadership, the "Big Three" assumed they
> could pass along the costs of job guarantees, high wages and benefits to
> consumers.
> Eager to defuse the class warfare of the 1930s—and to avoid
> unionization—many U.S. companies imitated the model. They, too, believed
> that competition would be limited and technological change could be
> controlled. These conceits are gone (in 2008, the Big Three's market share
> was 48 percent—and dropping). Now companies are hypersensitive to
> competitive and economic threats. A survey of 141 major companies by the
> consulting firm Watson Wyatt found that 72 percent have recently cut jobs,
> 21 percent reduced salaries and 22 percent curtailed 401(k) contributions.
> In theory, expanding public welfare could offset eroding private welfare.
> President Obama's health-care proposal reflects that logic. The trouble is
> that the public sector also faces enormous cost pressures, driven by an
> aging population and rising health costs. The Congressional Budget Office
> projects the federal debt to double as a share of the economy (gross
> domestic product) to about 80 percent of GDP by 2019.
> Any sober examination of figures like these suggests that the system has
> promised more than it can realistically deliver. We are borrowing not to
> finance investment in the future but to pay for today's welfare—present
> consumption.
> Sooner or later, the huge debt will weaken the economy.
Here is where he resumes his ideological line -- the problem with the debt is *not* a humanistic one, wherein we should wonder if the government is going to remain pro-social-services -- instead he advances the problem, spending on the welfare state, as having the problematic *result* of undermining "the economy". Again he is shifting the blame *away* from the capitalist system itself, onto national policy, but this time from a different angle -- he is now confusing cause with effect, saying that bad policy makes for bad economics, when in fact we know that capitalism *as a whole*, *worldwide* is breaking down, *thereby* putting government (and private sector) human-welfare-related policies under increased pressures, leading to cutbacks.
> Nor
> would paying for all promised benefits with higher taxes be desirable. Big
> increases in either debt or taxes risk depressing economic growth, making it
> harder yet to pay promised benefits.
(More of the same here.) He is now returning to the heart of his thesis, swinging back around to his position of taking aim at social services spending. This is a classic attack on the working class using the boogeyman scare tactic of "inflation" -- these ideologues present social services spending as somehow being so much more damaging to the economy than military spending.
> The U.S. welfare state is inevitably weakening; insecurity is rising. The
> sensible thing would be to de cide which forms of public welfare are needed
> to protect the vulnerable and to begin paring others.
Why not just cut (imperialist) military spending? His use of the phrase "protect the vulnerable" elicits a stripped-down, bare-essentials mentality that evokes a "circle the wagons" mindset in the reader. The choice of phrase also deftly legitimizes "security", or military spending, despite the recent memory of the *failure* of the domestic security apparatus on the day of 9-11-2001.
> Our inaction poses
> another dreary parallel with GM. It was obvious a quarter century ago that
> GM the auto company could not support GM the welfare state. But the union
> wouldn't surrender benefits, and the company acquiesced. Inertia prevailed,
> and the reckoning came. The same cycle, repeated on a national scale with
> sums many multiples higher, would be correspondingly more fearsome.
> Samuelson is The author of The Great Inflation and Its Aftermath.
He finishes with a full-blown, right-wing attack on the unions as being the subversives of the economy, the key culprits and scapegoats for what is, in reality, a sclerotic economic system that is forcing suffering on the whole world, whether they're unionized or not.
This is distinctly a call-to-arms against workers' rights, fully resting blame on workers for the fall of GM and for the nation-in-the-red as a whole. The final sentence implicitly legitimizes the multi-trillion-dollar financial bailout of the corporations, blithely ignoring the four-decades-long, ongoing attack on workers' compensation -- hardly a "pro-social-welfare" position...!
Chris
--
--
___
RevLeft.com -- Home of the Revolutionary Left
www.revleft.com/vb/member.php?u=16162
Photoillustrations, Political Diagrams by Chris Kaihatsu
community.webshots.com/user/ckaihatsu/
3D Design Communications - Let Your Design Do Your Footwork
ckaihatsu.elance.com
MySpace:
myspace.com/ckaihatsu
CouchSurfing:
tinyurl.com/yoh74u
-- Of all the Marxists in a roomful of people, I'm the Wilde-ist. --