Monday, November 19, 2018

Cicero: The Root of the Problem



Another Discussion by Cicero

I am not blaming the non-elite working people for anything, nor am I defending the so-called elite; I am only looking logically.
What will happen in the consumer culture of the USA in the future is not what citizen Mr. Smith (or his representative in congress) decides is best for the USA, it is what consumer Mr. Smith believes will provide the highest quality of living for Mr. Smith. Each generation must be “better off” than the last and to support this goal the economy, like a tumor, must grow no matter what. These are the fundamentals of our capitalism.
It does not matter whether that which is good for Mr. Smith is good for others or the country as a whole; Mr. Smith will not vote for a candidate who does not promise to improve his standard of living and support the idea that any problem Mr. Smith has in obtaining a better lifestyle is no fault of Mr. Smith himself. If Smith is a coal miner, he will vote for the politician who denies global warning and changes the energy policy of the entire country accordingly - to give Mr. Smith the lifestyle he deserves. 
American factory workers who lose their job to the effects of globalism want to blame the elite for making greedy business decisions, but all the business decisions made by the elite are based on the actions of the factory worker him/herself - as a consumer, not a worker, not on the actions of the elite. Other than trying to determine what blue-collar/typical consumers will buy when given free choice, the elite have no interest whatsoever in the economy cars, or cheap food, or cheap anything else that will be assembled or grown in Mexico or China versus in the USA. The only people who care about products built/grown in Mexico and China, etc., is the blue-collar consumer. Thus, the people who determine the result of this despised globalism are the workers/common people themselves, not the elite. Before they can be labeled workers or any other classification of human being, workers are now, first and foremost, consumers - this is the victory won by our capitalism.
H L Mencken said the central belief of every moron is that they are the victim of a vast conspiracy against their common rights and just deserts. This is the belief that supports Trumpism and it is pure bullshit with regards to the loss of American jobs.
The real issue of import in this tremendously wealthy country of ours, is how the vast wealth is distributed; obviously - and since money is for spending, the issue is how do people spend their money. When factory workers spend their hard-earned money, they universally support globalism and the forces that will ultimately eliminate their job. When the elite spend their money, they are not motivated to support the forces of globalism because, for the most part, they do not care what the products they buy cost. If the theory is that the elite are causing the move toward globalism, then the complaint must be that the elite are too cheap - not willing enough to spend more than they need to spend. I do not think this is the problem. It is the working-class consumer that will never pay a premium to save an American job in the future. People may say that they will pay more for American-made products when a phone bank caller asks, but they will never follow through in real life - zero percent will and this defines the relevant characteristic of our culture; does it not?

-

No comments: