the dropout economy

[bcbm]

The Dropout Economy

By Reihan Salam (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29) Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

Middle-class kids are taught from an early age that they should work hard and finish school. Yet 3 out of 10 students dropped out of high school as recently as 2006, and less than a third of young people have finished college. Many economists attribute the sluggish wage growth in the U.S. to educational stagnation, which is one reason politicians of every stripe call for doubling or tripling the number of college graduates.

But what if the millions of so-called dropouts are onto something? As conventional high schools and colleges prepare the next generation for jobs that won't exist, we're on the cusp of a dropout revolution, one that will spark an era of experimentation in new ways to learn and new ways to live.

It's important to keep in mind that behavior that seems irrational from a middle-class perspective is perfectly rational in the face of straitened circumstances. People who feel obsolete in today's information economy will be joined by millions more in the emerging post-information economy, in which routine professional work and even some high-end services will be more cheaply performed overseas or by machines. This doesn't mean that work will vanish. It does mean, however, that it will take a new and unfamiliar form.

Look at the projections of fiscal doom emanating from the federal government, and consider the possibility that things could prove both worse and better. Worse because the jobless recovery we all expect could be severe enough to starve the New Deal social programs on which we base our life plans. Better because the millennial generation could prove to be more resilient and creative than its predecessors, abandoning old, familiar and broken institutions in favor of new, strange and flourishing ones.

Imagine a future in which millions of families live off the grid, powering their homes and vehicles with dirt-cheap portable fuel cells. As industrial agriculture sputters under the strain of the spiraling costs of water, gasoline and fertilizer, networks of farmers using sophisticated techniques that combine cutting-edge green technologies with ancient Mayan know-how build an alternative food-distribution system. Faced with the burden of financing the decades-long retirement of aging boomers, many of the young embrace a new underground economy, a largely untaxed archipelago of communes, co-ops, and kibbutzim that passively resist the power of the granny state while building their own little utopias.

Rather than warehouse their children in factory schools invented to instill obedience in the future mill workers of America, bourgeois rebels will educate their kids in virtual schools tailored to different learning styles. Whereas only 1.5 million children were homeschooled in 2007, we can expect the number to explode in future years as distance education blows past the traditional variety in cost and quality.

The cultural battle lines of our time, with red America pitted against blue, will be scrambled as Buddhist vegan militia members and evangelical anarchist squatters trade tips on how to build self-sufficient vertical farms from scrap-heap materials. To avoid the tax man, dozens if not hundreds of strongly encrypted digital currencies and barter schemes will crop up, leaving an underresourced IRS to play whack-a-mole with savvy libertarian “hacktivists.”

Work and life will be remixed, as old-style jobs, with long commutes and long hours spent staring at blinking computer screens, vanish thanks to ever increasing productivity levels. New jobs that we can scarcely imagine will take their place, only they’ll tend to be home-based, thus restoring life to bedroom suburbs that today are ghost towns from 9 to 5. Private homes will increasingly give way to cohousing communities, in which singles and nuclear families will build makeshift kinship networks in shared kitchens and common areas and on neighborhood-watch duty. Gated communities will grow larger and more elaborate, effectively seceding from their municipalities and pursuing their own visions of the good life. Whether this future sounds like a nightmare or a dream come true, it’s coming.

This transformation will be not so much political as antipolitical. The decision to turn away from broken and brittle institutions, like conventional schools and conventional jobs, will represent a turn toward what military theorist John Robb calls “resilient communities,” which aspire to self-sufficiency and independence. The left will return to its roots as the champion of mutual aid, cooperative living and what you might call “broadband socialism,” in which local governments take on the task of building high-tech infrastructure owned by the entire community. Assuming today’s libertarian revival endures, it’s easy to imagine the right defending the prerogatives of state and local governments and also of private citizens–including the weird ones. This new individualism on the left and the right will begin in the spirit of cynicism and distrust that we see now, the sense that we as a society are incapable of solving pressing problems. It will evolve into a new confidence that citizens working in common can change their lives and in doing so can change the world around them.

We see this individualism in the rise of “freeganism” and in the small but growing handful of “cage-free families” who’ve abandoned their suburban idylls for life on the open road. We also see it in the rising number of high school seniors who take a gap year before college. While the higher-education industry continues to agitate for college for all, many young adults are stubbornly resistant, perhaps because they recognize that for a lot of them, college is an overpriced status marker and little else. In the wake of the downturn, household formation has slowed down. More than one-third of workers under 35 live with their parents.

The hope is that these young people will eventually leave the house when the economy perks up, and doubtless many will. Others, however, will choose to root themselves in their neighborhoods and use social media to create relationships that sustain them as they craft alternatives to the rat race. Somewhere in the suburbs there is an unemployed 23-year-old who is plotting a cultural insurrection, one that will resonate with existing demographic, cultural and economic trends so powerfully that it will knock American society off its axis.


http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1971133_1971110_1971126-1,00.html

[khad]

Yeah, I'm sure that this lifestylist hedonism promoted by a fucking neocon like Reihan Salam will help to challenge the power of the ruling classes.

The only reason he is saying this shit is so that fuckers like him can convince themselves that poor people welcome the destruction of jobs and social services and like to live in misery.

Anyone championing this vile propaganda should be evaluated as a candidate for restriction.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I don't even know where to begin with this one. This article seems to be looking at the further decline of working class living standards as some kind of conscious decision by so-called middle class people. Yay, more families are living out of their car! Yay, college is becoming more inaccessible to working class students!

Establishment liberals are so fucking delusional. I can't tell you how many stupid fucking editiorials I have read in the NYT and Christian Science Monitor or whatnot that celebrate the economic collapse. I read on last week that argued: the recession is a chance to cancel your iphone and make some connections with the people you love in the real worldhttp://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies2/glare.gif. Or articles that argue: well the recession is good because Americans need to learn to live with less - or really - less roofs over our heads, less healthcare, less food? Fuck I hate liberal yuppies that think that everyone lives like the white people on television commercials.

Edit: Oh shit, the author is a neocon - even better :rolleyes:

[khad]

Edit: Oh shit, the author is a neocon - even better :rolleyes:
Yes, I pointed that out. Jacob Richter thanked it. WTF?

[Klaatu]

Establishment liberals are so fucking delusional. I can't tell you how many stupid fucking editiorials I have read in the NYT and Christian Science Monitor or whatnot that celebrate the economic collapse. I read on last week that argued: the recession is a chance to cancel your iphone and make some connections with the people you love in the real worldhttp://www.revleft.com/vb/../revleft/smilies2/glare.gif. Or articles that argue: well the recession is good because Americans need to learn to live with less - or really - less roofs over our heads, less healthcare, less food? Fuck I hate liberal yuppies that think that everyone lives like the white people on television commercials.

All the more reason that committed Socialists must get into the mainstream media more, in order to counteract the pervasive ignorance out there. I wish there were funding for TV or radio in this respect - Socialists have been getting the dirty end of the stick for far too long in this country. Like gays, atheists, blacks, we must become more vocal in the media. The masses need to be enlightened.

"I have a dream." (MLK)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes, I pointed that out. Jacob Richter thanked it. WTF?

I thanked the OP, not the article.

There are so many delusions in that article that I don't know where to begin.

Self-sufficiency? Communal living without class struggle?

My biggest objection is the subtle praise for de-industrialization.

[bcbm]

Yeah, I'm sure that this lifestylist hedonism promoted by a fucking neocon like Reihan Salam will help to challenge the power of the ruling classes.

who said it would?

[Glenn Beck]

the dropout economy - or how i learned to stop worrying and love neoliberalism

[Jimmie Higgins]

i posted an article i thought was interesting. lay off the inquisition:rolleyes:Yeah, i was a little confused as to why you were posting it too - I didn't think you were agreeing with it; I just was uncertain about why you posted it. In the future as simple "WTF?" at the end might make it clearer that you are posting something strange that you found.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Faced with the burden of financing the decades-long retirement of aging boomers, many of the young embrace a new underground economy, a largely untaxed archipelago of communes, co-ops, and kibbutzim that passively resist the power of the granny state while building their own little utopias.

Yes, the state won't have the ability to pierce into this underground economy. :rolleyes:

Hello Home Renovation Tax Credit! This was Canada's one-time way to get at underground income from home renos.


To avoid the tax man, dozens if not hundreds of strongly encrypted digital currencies and barter schemes will crop up, leaving an underresourced IRS to play whack-a-mole with savvy libertarian “hacktivists.”

Look no further than crackdowns on the so-called "Liberty Dollar."

I'm sure there will be a sufficient socialist crackdown on underground alternatives to official labour credits. :)


Private homes will increasingly give way to cohousing communities, in which singles and nuclear families will build makeshift kinship networks in shared kitchens and common areas and on neighborhood-watch duty.

"But that's a sin! The nuclear family was mandated by God!"


This transformation will be not so much political as antipolitical.

And how many antipolitical experiments have succeeded in the long run? :rolleyes:


which aspire to self-sufficiency and independence

I don't want to get into a modernized debate on "socialism in one country," let alone Marx's critique of the Paris Commune's "socialism in one city" attempt.


This new individualism on the left and the right will begin in the spirit of cynicism and distrust that we see now, the sense that we as a society are incapable of solving pressing problems. It will evolve into a new confidence that citizens working in common can change their lives and in doing so can change the world around them.

Make up your mind: individualism or collectivism ("working in common")?



I will make one serious comment about this:


The left will return to its roots as the champion of mutual aid

It had better. The prolonged rejection of the SPD model of "alternative culture" - cultural societies, recreational clubs, funeral homes, food banks, etc. has led to worker cynicism towards left politics.

[Die Neue Zeit]

since the entire thing is wrapped in some vaguely socialist, utopian sounding rhetoric while describing what are basically survival methods for an increasingly desperate working class

All the while the fat cats get to live in normal luxury.

[Ravachol]

To be fairly honest, I think you're all overreacting.
Whilst I, as a technophile who has a penchant for 'better living through technology', disagree with primitivism of the Zerzan type, I found this article not that offensive and pretty interesting actually.

First of all, I don't read it like an advocacy for one thing or another, it merely describes a potential future, one I don't deem THAT unlikely. It all sounds a bit Fallout-like cyberpunky but some of it, especially the social desintegration and geospatial distribution of classes with the rise of the gated communities and ghetto's, was pretty accurate.

I was amazed to see the author was Reihan Salam, a neocon if there ever was one. Whilst I think a future like that is far away, I don't deem it that unlikely and it presents an interesting point of discussion around the topics of geospatial class distribution, post-fordist workplace resistance and communal organising. The 'black economy' he talks about can be interpreted as more than just libertarians buying guns, gold nuggets, DNA Biocanisters and bibles in full-blown Deus-ex fashion :rolleyes: Revolutionary counter-power and self-organisation, like food kitchens and credit unions run by pre-WWI Syndicalist organisations is a form of 'black economy' as well, just not a black 'market' ;)

The idea of affinity networks rooted in material needs isn't "hedonism", it's just plain old materialism. Class struggle is nothing more or less than an affinity network rooted in the material conditions of the working class and their "hedonistic" interests opposed to those of the bourgoisie. I found the text resembled some of the more apocalyptic paragraphs of 'The comming insurrection', which is why ,I assume, BCBM liked it :p.
The idea of affinity networks rooted in shared material needs might prove to be an interesting model for class struggle where traditional modes of organisation fail. In fact, workplace resistance groups as described by the Swedish Marxist group Kämpa Tillsammans, arise in wildcat-like fashion now and then and prove to be very capable of meeting working class demands and raising class conciousness.

I am sure nobody here espouses living in trailers growing our own food whilst pirating broadband and having members of our 'evangelical anarchist commune' hack into gated community servers to steal credit cards, however that might get off dystopian fiction fans here :rolleyes:
What the article describes (unintentionally though), in my eyes, is an over-the-top version of the idea that social desintegration and segregation along class lines is getting more and more profilic and the result might be the automatic and autonomous organisations of affinity groups rooted in material desires if only to make ends meet in these 'working class ghettos'.

Shoving this to opposing ideologies is ridiculous.

I also saw Salam mentioned John Robb. Robb, being an ex-USAF pilot, has some ambivalent ideas. Whilst his ideas of 'self-sufficient' communities and affinity networks highly resembles late Italian Autonomist Marxism's advocacy of 'autonomous zones' (for example, whole working class districts taking over their neighbourhood after a rent strike and building self-organisations running the neighbourhood), he often seems to border on Tribalism, which is rather dubious given the close link between tribalist decentralisation and 'National Anarchism'. Now, whilst 'National Anarchism' is,as I've pointed out in multiple threads, a whole seperate ideology that doesn't just ammount to decentralisation, I dislike the idea of 'Tribalism'.

It should be obvious that most forms of Tribalism are rooted in identity politics. Now, this can be compatible with class struggle, but we should be carefull not to argue in favour of identity-bound communes lest we degenerate in some sort of tribalist movement. Affinity-networks and decentralised communes and/or autonomous zones should always be rooted in material needs and class struggle.

[IcarusAngel]

Yes, the state won't have the ability to pierce into this underground economy. :rolleyes:

Why would the government interfere when they have their own problems with the corporations they helped to create that helped to bankrupt them?

There are many economies that are not "underground" that the government doesn't interfere with.


Look no further than crackdowns on the so-called "Liberty Dollar."

I'm sure there will be a sufficient socialist crackdown on underground alternatives to official labour credits. :)

The Liberty Dollar is trying to create another gold standard and undermine the Federal Reserve notes.

If I create computer shared credits that people use to support their local economy, that merely creates an incentive to keep resources within the community.

People could still choose to take federal reserve notes, such as to pay their taxes.

I agree the government MIGHT crack down on this, but they shouldn't. They have bigger problems to worry about right now.

But this is just like saying, we shouldn't have funded research, because the government MIGHT crack down on it.


And how many antipolitical experiments have succeeded in the long run? :rolleyes:

"Anti-political" is usually a term employed by rightists to refer to the "ability" of the workers to just sit down and take the slavery and the corporatism that exists in this society and not worry about it, or do nothing about it in the hopes that the problem takes care of itself.

I agree that anti-politics is generally a bad thing and has not helped women or to solve the problem of corporate abuses.


Make up your mind: individualism or collectivism ("working in common")?

We can't have both?

I believe in the collective body of knowledge of science, and want to participate in it, but still think of myself as an individual.

[khad]

Thread returned to the OI under administrative sanction. Any more attempts to move it out, and it'll be closed and trashed.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why would the government interfere when they have their own problems with the corporations they helped to create that helped to bankrupt them?

As this crisis has shown, governments prefer to tax ordinary workers than to tax multinationals. Even if they did go after them, they'd still want to go after the tax-evading utopians.


There are many economies that are not "underground" that the government doesn't interfere with.

That is if they aren't commercially based. These utopias will almost certainly engage in commercial activity, which results in business income. They won't settle just for self-sufficiency.


The Liberty Dollar is trying to create another gold standard and undermine the Federal Reserve notes.

If I create computer shared credits that people use to support their local economy, that merely creates an incentive to keep resources within the community.

People could still choose to take federal reserve notes, such as to pay their taxes.

I agree the government MIGHT crack down on this, but they shouldn't. They have bigger problems to worry about right now.

But this is just like saying, we shouldn't have funded research, because the government MIGHT crack down on it.

Actually, I was talking about socialistic distribution that dispenses with money altogether and ties means of exchange directly to labour hours with expiry limits and all. Circulation of money is crucial to the formation of capital itself.


"Anti-political" is usually a term employed by rightists to refer to the "ability" of the workers to just sit down and take the slavery and the corporatism that exists in this society and not worry about it, or do nothing about it in the hopes that the problem takes care of itself.

I agree that anti-politics is generally a bad thing and has not helped women or to solve the problem of corporate abuses.

I know you know that class struggle is political, but I was being sarcastic towards the article.


We can't have both?

I believe in the collective body of knowledge of science, and want to participate in it, but still think of myself as an individual.

I was speaking of "individualism" and "collectivism" in bourgeois terms (read: atomization vs. "the greater good").

[Ravachol]

Thread returned to the OI under administrative sanction. Any more attempts to move it out, and it'll be closed and trashed.

What is your reason for this?
As I stated earlier, I assume nobody is advocating


that poor people welcome the destruction of jobs and social services and like to live in misery.

If you read my post you'd see that it merely sketches the outlines of a potential future with possibilities for new forms of class struggle. I don't see how that fits in OI.



Yeah, I'm sure that this lifestylist hedonism


I honestly don't see any advocacy of lifestylism here? I fiercly oppose any form of lifestylism but if you consider the struggle for material needs as 'lifestylism' you might as well give up class struggle alltogether since it's a collective struggle, as a class, for improvement of the material conditions of our class. If that's hedonism, i'm a hedonist... :rolleyes:

[bcbm]

Whilst I, as a technophile who has a penchant for 'better living through technology', disagree with primitivism of the Zerzan type, I found this article not that offensive and pretty interesting actually.

what does "primitivism of the zerzan type" have to do with anything?


First of all, I don't read it like an advocacy for one thing or another, it merely describes a potential future, one I don't deem THAT unlikely. It all sounds a bit Fallout-like cyberpunky but some of it, especially the social desintegration and geospatial distribution of classes with the rise of the gated communities and ghetto's, was pretty accurate.

I was amazed to see the author was Reihan Salam, a neocon if there ever was one. Whilst I think a future like that is far away, I don't deem it that unlikely and it presents an interesting point of discussion around the topics of geospatial class distribution, post-fordist workplace resistance and communal organising. The 'black economy' he talks about can be interpreted as more than just libertarians buying guns, gold nuggets, DNA Biocanisters and bibles in full-blown Deus-ex fashion :rolleyes: Revolutionary counter-power and self-organisation, like food kitchens and credit unions run by pre-WWI Syndicalist organisations is a form of 'black economy' as well, just not a black 'market' ;)

yes, this is basically why i posted the article. i think this is definitely a possible future; i think some people and areas are already moving in this direction. if things do go this way, i think it will require some strategic adjustments by the left, based around questioning how we can transform a counter-economy based on survival into a more threat to capitalism. on that note, i think what you have to say here:


The idea of affinity networks rooted in shared material needs might prove to be an interesting model for class struggle where traditional modes of organisation fail. In fact, workplace resistance groups as described by the Swedish Marxist group Kämpa Tillsammans, arise in wildcat-like fashion now and then and prove to be very capable of meeting working class demands and raising class conciousness.

is spot on. i think we need to stop considering the struggle as something that only occurs on "the factory floor," and establish a material base that aims to improve conditions in our class. how can we connect with those around us and establish this base? what resources do we have to offer? how can we create something that isn't just dropping out, but a base from which to struggle against capitalism?

[Ravachol]

what does "primitivism of the zerzan type" have to do with anything?


Not much really, but I wanted to make clear I have no interest in that kind of primitivism before the discussion got derailed that way ;)




is spot on. i think we need to stop considering the struggle as something that only occurs on "the factory floor," and establish a material base that aims to improve conditions in our class. how can we connect with those around us and establish this base? what resources do we have to offer? how can we create something that isn't just dropping out, but a base from which to struggle against capitalism?

I've been struggeling with that question as well.
The problem is we must guard for devolving into scene-ism like the Dutch/German 'Autonomen' (not Marxist Autonomism mind you, although they are historically related) movement did. It established some food-kitchens, musical centres, bars,etc but all in a very scene-like fashion which produced and reproduced a boxed-in counter-culture in a very very conformist manner. Whilst I enjoy that counter-culture myself, it's completely inaccessible and unconnected to the working-class today.

We should not look to develop some sort of 'no-future punk' counter-culture nonsense, but look to develop alter-culture. The best example of this is in my eyes, yet again, pre-WWI Syndicalism. I think material bases and organisations offering alternatives and improvements of material conditions to the working class in a struggle-oriented fashion (preferably undermining capitalist institutions at the same time) ought to be developed by a movement rooted in the working-class and should operate as accessable as possible.

I do believe that this network of institutions should be connected to a broader Syndicalist mass-movement, as disconnection from mass-movements and a focus on the alternatives as an end themselves leads to scene-ism and abandonment of mass-struggle.

Another upside of this model is the fact that it ties in with the Syndicalist idea of 'building a new world in the shell of the old', over a periode of struggle, whilst establishing these alter-institutions, they could eventually strive to replace capital's institutions and eat the dominant order from inside out.
Once the old world is hollowed out, this network of alter-institutions (an early example being the Syndicalist Bours du Travail) would provide a skeleton framework from where to proceed to a new order.
A major boon here is that these institutions can and ought to be developped from a working-class autonomy perspective as to minimise the reproduction of capital's logic and dominant power-relations inside the institutions. While this will intially most likely happen, it can be minimised and thus these skeleton institutions will provide a basis for breaking with the logic of capital and cultural hegemony.

[bcbm]

I've been struggeling with that question as well.
The problem is we must guard for devolving into scene-ism like the Dutch/German 'Autonomen' (not Marxist Autonomism mind you, although they are historically related) movement did. It established some food-kitchens, musical centres, bars,etc but all in a very scene-like fashion which produced and reproduced a boxed-in counter-culture in a very very conformist manner. Whilst I enjoy that counter-culture myself, it's completely inaccessible and unconnected to the working-class today.

i think one way to avoid the formation of a counter-cultural ghetto might be to not begin by establishing spaces, but start connecting with our co-workers, neighbors, etc outside of a purely political or cultural context. once we know each other more, it will be easier to determine how we can support each other and what our specific circumstances require materially.


The best example of this is in my eyes, yet again, pre-WWI Syndicalism. I think material bases and organisations offering alternatives and improvements of material conditions to the working class in a struggle-oriented fashion (preferably undermining capitalist institutions at the same time) ought to be developed by a movement rooted in the working-class and should operate as accessable as possible.

i think it would be better to pursue things at a purely grassroots, informal level. organizations could get involved, but they shouldn't take a leading role from the beginning. too many leftist organizations have a lot of unfortunate baggage that would be detrimental to getting things going.

[khad]

As stated in the moderator forum:


It's a bourgeois-lifestylist article from a bourgeois magazine, aimed at appealing to the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. It doesn't even have a tangential relationship to revolutionary politics. Go ahead and move it back to OI. And if it is moved out of there again, close and trash it. We really don't need this kind of clutter around here.

And that's exactly what is going to happen, since some unnamed mod decided to move this thread without logging or discussing the action, a clear violation of standard procedures. Thread trashed. Do not attempt to restore or repost this thread.

[F9]

And that's exactly what is going to happen, since some unnamed mod decided to move this thread without logging or discussing the action, a clear violation of standard procedures. Thread trashed. Do not attempt to restore or repost this thread.

This is a clear violation of standard procedures Khad.All actions are logged, you just need to know where to search to find them.You have no right to close threads and worse trash them, because a mod moved it elsewhere.

[Ravachol]

As stated in the moderator forum:



And that's exactly what is going to happen, since some unnamed mod decided to move this thread without logging or discussing the action, a clear violation of standard procedures. Thread trashed. Do not attempt to restore or repost this thread.

Care to elaborate as to how exactly DISCUSSING this article is 'bourgois-lifestylist'. An article doesn't necessarily have to be pro-revolutionary for it to be interesting in a discussion. Also, I suggest you read my previous posts and then proceed to discuss as to whether or not this article is related to revolutionary politics.