Feeling the Pain

The Cyprus bailout is going forward, with a modification or two.  Fortunately for Cypriot workers, their bank deposits will be safe, at least for now.   The imposed deposit tax will apparently only affect large accounts.

Meanwhile, the banks in Cyprus remain closed…

Austerity

The European Union and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to assist the cash-strapped government of Cyprus with an emergency infusion of € 13 billion.

Naturally, there are strings attached.  In this case, the austerity measures demanded by the EU and the IMF include a 10% forfeiture of savings bank deposits.

The bankers and politicians fail.  Innocent people pay the price, as they have throughout the global economic crisis.  First, they lose their equity in stocks and in their own homes.  Now they are being penalized again for their own hard work and thrift.

And so the greatest wealth transfer in modern history continues apace.  How soon before austerity comes home to roost in the United States?  How will we respond? 

I truly want to believe that there would finally be a backlash against the plutocrats, a true occupation of Wall Street, but I cannot.  Sadly, the public will do what it’s done since 2008.  It will blame the Democrats, shiftless welfare cheats, and spendthrifts who owe more than they can ever pay.  In the end our false consciousness, our willingness to be capitalism’s useless idiots, will be our undoing.  We’ll lick our masters' boots even as they kick us into our graves...

© 2013 The Unassuming Scholar

Indispensable People

Once in a while, common sense is reflected in social scientific research.  According to an item in the Huffington Post this week, a new study finds that bosses tend to be less stressed than their employees.

Surprise, surprise.  Although the article avers that the Harvard study defies the “conventional wisdom” that greater pressures are part and parcel of the greater responsibility shouldered by our betters, those of us in the rank and file know better.

It all comes down to security and life chances.  It’s true enough that CEOs and managers lose their jobs every day.  It’s also unlikely that these people will spend much time unemployed.  Even if it takes longer than expected to land a new position, the superior compensation enjoyed by senior management, often sweetened with golden parachutes upon termination, soften the blow of being out of work.

Not so with most workers.  After thirty-some years of neoliberal economic policies, flat wage growth, offshoring, union-busting, and cuts to pensions and social programs, faced with the struggle to make ends meet and the threat of unemployment with only a badly frayed safety net to catch them when they fall, the American working class is beset with anxiety and feelings of helplessness bordering on Weltschmerz.   

This is to the advantage of employers, of course.  A fearful worker is a docile worker.  A large surplus labor pool, undereducated and fitted only for the deskilled service work of the postindustrial economy, keeps wages low and serves as an object example to anyone tempted to buck the system.  The widespread reliance on consumer credit to maintain the comfortable standard of living we all expect further serves to discipline the workforce by way of postmodern debt servitude.  It’s probably best not to mention the certain economic disaster lurking behind illness or accident even when the unfortunates are insured.  Too many of us go to work every day with the bleak knowledge that we are expendable hostages to misfortune.    

The underlying lesson of the Harvard executive stress study is clear and simple: In our free market system, some people are more indispensable than others.    

© 2012 The Unassuming Scholar

We Are (Still) the 99%

The Occupy Wall Street movement began a year ago today with its first, namesake demonstration in New York City.

By turns iconic, inspiring, and frustrating, OWS has if nothing struck a deep nerve in American public opinion.  As with liberalism and progressivism since the Age of Reagan, Occupy has been largely defined by its conservative opposition.  In the popular perception fostered by the mass media, the Occupiers are, interchangeably, smelly hippie wannabes who need to grow up and get a job or a bunch of overprivileged, overeducated brats who don’t know how ordinary people live.     

The truth is, as always, more nuanced than the popular stereotypes admit.  A point of comparison may be helpful.  The Tea Party, OWS’s obverse in so many respects, is thought to have suffered from the same public misapprehensions.  A crucial difference between the two movements, however, is that the Tea Party was in no small measure the product of interest group astroturfing.  If not for extensive funding by groups such as Americans for Prosperity and the Koch brothers and the attendant access to the media resources necessary to persuade and organize rank-and-file voters, it’s unlikely the Tea Party as a purely grassroots phenomenon would ever have had enjoyed the successes it did in the 2010 midterm elections. 

Although the mass media were somewhat useful in airing Occupy’s message, OWS never received the same volume of coverage as the Tea Party.  Compounding the problem was a question of vision, a problem with public image, of means and ends.  Apart from asserting the power of the 99% and protesting corporate power, Occupy never articulated a coherent message.  This much was clear both in the Occupy marches I attended last fall as well as academic discussions about what the whole thing meant. 

The messaging problem was an intractable one from the start.  There appeared as many facets of Occupy as there were adherents, as many political tendencies as factions.  Meanwhile, fragmented media images defined Occupy for the rest of the world.  Unkempt squatters in New York’s Zuccotti Park.  College kids pepper sprayed by police on the UC Davis quad.  But it was the prominence of anarchists in Occupy Oakland and their refusal to back down in the face of police intimidation, together with reports of incidental damage to private property during demonstrations that served to solidify mainstream distaste with the overall movement.  Once OWS and anarchism became conflated in the public mind, any residual sympathy evaporated. 

Much like “communist” and “socialist, “anarchist” is a term understood viscerally rather than intellectually.  Anarchists may not be the mad bombers they were seen as (and sometimes were) a century ago, but they’re still pretty scary to folks out in the sterile precincts of suburbia.  Rather than seeing anarchists as people practicing a philosophy of non-exploitive, non-hierarchical social cooperation, the dominant image is that of black-masked thugs smashing in the plate glass window of a Starbuck’s.  In the absence of any substantive coverage, it’s sufficient to alienate the people necessary to make Occupy a broad-based social movement.

One sign of hope from Occupy is that it signals an emergent struggle for the soul of the middle class.  The majority may still be in thrall to the free market myth, but a small and vocal segment of educated, aware citizens who see personal economic difficulties as structural rather than as an outcome of character failure can help shape public opinion in favor of more humane economic and social policies.  From that start point, perhaps the realization that the economic crisis we’re suffering is truly global in scope will take hold and more of us will find common cause with those afflicted worldwide. 

We are—still—the 99%.  All we need to move forward is a common cause, a common consciousness, a single purpose.  Occupy Wall Street may not have gained momentum as a mass movement in its formative stages.  But it can show us the way forward.  Perhaps we will see in Occupy’s second year a fuller realization of the potential that was so evident in its first, heady days.

© 2012 The Unassuming Scholar

No Consequences

It's just come out that the U.S. Department of Justice has declined to bring charges against Goldman Sachs or its employees for their role in the financial meltdown.

As if we needed another reminder that we have the best government money can buy…

Adieu, Sarko

Nicolas Sarkozy steps down today as French president, to be replaced by socialist François Hollande.  Voters in one of Europe’s largest economies have rejected self-defeating austerity policies in favor of a program of growth. 

Equally heartening news comes from Germany: The governing CDU just suffered losses in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election, traditionally a bellwether for national political trends.  Now, if Greece can only form a new government without calling another election…