"Marx's 'Das Kapital' Lives On"

An excerpt from a book on Karl Marx:

Marx's 'Das Kapital' Lives On in Capitalist Age, NPR
[Listen Now]: ...Excerpt: 'Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography' by Francis Wheen: Chapter 1: Gestation ... Marx's earliest ambitions were literary. As a law student at the University of Berlin he wrote a book of poetry, a verse drama and even a novel, Scorpion and Felix, which was dashed off in a fit of intoxicated whimsy while under the spell of Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. After these experiments, he admitted defeat: 'Suddenly, as if by a magic touch - oh, the touch was at first a shattering blow - I caught sight of the distant realm of true poetry like a distant fairy palace, and all my creations crumbled into nothing… A curtain had fallen, my holy of holies was rent asunder, and new gods had to be installed.' Suffering some kind of breakdown, he was ordered by his doctor to retreat to the countryside for a long rest - whereupon he at last succumbed to the siren voice of G. W. F. ...

After gaining his doctorate [Marx] thought of becoming a philosophy lecturer, but then decided that daily proximity to professors would be intolerable. 'Who would want to have to talk always with intellectual skunks, with people who study only for the purpose of finding new dead ends in every corner of the world!' Besides, since leaving university Marx had been turning his thoughts from idealism to materialism, from the abstract to the actual. 'Since every true philosophy is the intellectual quintessence of its time,' he wrote in 1842, 'the time must come when philosophy not only internally by its content, but also externally through its form, comes into contact and interaction with the real world of its day.' That spring he began writing for a new liberal newspaper in Cologne, the Rheinische Zeitung; within six months he had been appointed editor.

Marx's journalism is characterized by a reckless belligerence which explains why he spent most of his adult life in exile and political isolation. His very first article for the Rheinische Zeitung was a lacerating assault on both the intolerance of Prussian absolutism and the feeble-mindedness of its liberal opponents. Not content with making enemies of the government and opposition simultaneously, he turned against his own comrades as well, denouncing the Young Hegelians for 'rowdiness and blackguardism'. Only two months after Marx's assumption of editorial responsibility, the provincial governor asked the censorship ministers in Berlin to prosecute him for 'impudent and disrespectful criticism'.

No less a figure than Tsar Nicholas of Russia also begged the Prussian king to suppress the Rheinische Zeitung, having taken umbrage at an anti-Russian diatribe. The paper was duly closed in March 1843: at the age of twenty-four, Marx was already wielding a pen that could terrify and infuriate the crowned heads of Europe. ...

Marx was a pretty effective blogger. Here is a page from an archive of his posts, with more here.

Update: Andrew Leonard has more.

Comments

[reason]

This suggests of course that had he lived to see the revolution, it would never have lasted.

[Brenda Rosser]

Marx's journalism is characterized by a reckless belligerence...

I caught sight of the distant realm of true poetry like a distant fairy palace, and all my creations crumbled into nothing...

Suffering some kind of breakdown, he was ordered by his doctor to retreat to the countryside for a long rest...

Hmmm. Sounds like someone I know.

[Denis Drew]

Perhaps if Marx were born into a freer culture like America instead of nineteenth century Europe, he might have thought of that more natural scheme of checks and balances to protect labor in the free market -- adequately organized labor -- instead of coming up with his crackpot alternate history scheme of common ownership of the means of production -- which a billion-plus people were subjected to for 70 years.

[hari]

Marx also wrote, in his later life, for the New York Tribune - (now International Herald Tribune published daily in Paris)
and that means his family was kept alive by the NYT! His children also died of malnutrition...

I also recall my Prof got me to do a paper on:

"Historical Materialism as a Systems Theory" which of course, if I recall now, was a difficult philosophical discourse (Adorno had already dissected the social system in Europe!).

Lenin was lucky - compared to Marx. The Swiss gave him a home in Zurich Public Library. The Germans later put on special train for him to get to Moscow - in time! Trotsky was succeeding with his tactics....

[robertdfeinman]

Marx is the perfect example of how one can be an insightful social critic and still be unable to come up with viable policy recommendations.

I've been reading a bunch of recent books which take the Bushies to task for being a) ineffective, b) not true "conservatives", c) dishonest, or d) destroying democracy and the constitution.

They all are quite good at detailing the recent history and showing where it doesn't adhere to the norms the authors expect. They also all peter out when it comes time to provide a plan to correct the faults. Building up is much harder than tearing down.

[Lafayette]

MT: Marx was a pretty effective blogger.

Perhaps.

But somehow I doubt any blogger will be starting a revolution nowadays.

People may rant about perceived injustices, especially economic, but none have the courage to go down onto the streets and demonstrate.

They're too busy earning enough money to pay the mortgage. Marx was right, again; once a bourgeoisie becomes customarily established, it is extremely difficult to get it too budge. It has become set in its ways.

[calmo]

Thanks laffy for focusing on Mark's suggestion that this activity, blogging, is a fair (not merely provocative) comparison to Marx's writing for the Rheinische Zeitung.
Most people, today can read and write (somewhat)[as is evidenced right here in River City!], but in Marx's time it was more of a distinction...and more of a threat to the powerful who ruled the basically illiterate, yes? Yes? [Absolutely calmo...who could question your authority...in this little box...for a few minutes? nobody]
Anyhow (my somewhat literate friends...skirmish is me, you?) this listening aspect, this "receiving of messages" is about as far as the Marxian world goes: letters to the editor about inflammatory language come later...nearly instant (nearly all unedited) responses of the blogging world, a century and a half later.
In those days when General Glut was blogging, he had this large (Marxian-like) impression of Atrios leading the Dems astray...twas a misread of the bogging structure. Twas.

[Praxis]

Denis Drew: fair point. But I don't think Marx's scheme is much more crackpot than the idea of a free market in which all exchanges are voluntary and mutually beneficial. That 'alternate history' is doing just fine - perhaps because, as Marx says in his blog, "[t]he greater right is on the side of the greater might... Each of the two powers can prove that it is right only by its victory, that it is wrong only by its defeat."

[paine]

mark
thanx for the promo

my team's
eternal captain
always can use some added exposure

even to herr drew

[dale]

common ownership of the means of production is no more crackpot that private ownership. We now have common ownership of schools, universities, electrical distribution systems, water/sewer works, roads, bridges, postal service, etc. Some nations still own airlines, railways, and more. Who is to say what is crackpot and what is in the appropriate interest of the common good?

Certainly, the Soviet Marxist experience was a hard learned lesson in the organization of modern society- but then so were and are the lessons of our various capitalist systems.

I think most leftists have a healthy suspicion of large scale government ownership of certain sectors of the economy. I just wish others had a healthy suspicion of the social pathologies inherent in "free" market systems.

[Denis Drew]

Praxis,
That both communism and the unfettered market are equally missing the checks and balances that are all necessary whenever (mostly self-serving) human beings interact is exactly my latest defense against Newt Gingrich and his hordes.
**************
Had a funny idea today on how to dispel the fear of government market intervention among Midwest social conservatives (like myself) -- haven't worked it all out yet but it goes something like this:

New York City is too big to feel personal -- Chicago feels like a small town by comparison. The example I think of quickly is that (only) New York cops will arrest a guardian angel (Kurstis Sliwa variety) on the complaint of a drug dealer. Their cops think they are being "idealistic" -- distant drummer of the law stuff -- when actually they are just being bureaucratic, a.k.a. impersonal.

Midwestern America does not want to feel anything like New York City.

We can realistically liken the typical American (abstract) fear of intervention in the free market -- like universal health or a high minimum wage (notice I did not say "adequate" minimum; all the market can bear for me) -- to impersonal, bureaucratic thinking that is possible only because AMERICA IS TOO BIG (to feel personal). We can make the comparison work because it is true.

If Illinois were an entire nation folks there would see universal health, etc. as just common sense. They would not be easily reachable by abstract objections because they could sense the reality of the intervention in a common sense way just outside their windows.

A bit convoluted at this point. Don't worry about offending New Yorkers; New Yorkers don't care a wit what anybody outside New York thinks of their city. I know that for certain; I am a native (drivers license at 32).

[calmo]

Just a reality check Denis, native NYCer..."drivers licence at 32" meaning you are a genuine "rocker" as kt puts it? 32 years old? Earth years?
Or wazat 30 years ago like the rest of us symphoniacs?
Ok, assuming you wouldn't lie to us like a thing like that, I need another dose of your post.
Ok, had it: New Yorkers are beyond personal which has everything to do with SIZE --unlike Chicagoians whose orbits are so much smaller they know everybody by their 1st name (a line made famous by that other NYer, Dick Grasso). In NYC, you are a case. And the government is an obstacle responsible for, and committed to, you being a case.
So Karl is ok on a small farm, or even in a small farming community, but once he hits the city, he's toast...another case lodging a complaint.
Awhile back there was a thread about how stupid ants are, but how intelligent the colony was. Now, I'm wondering if there is a metropolitis of colonies that is even so much more intelligent ...or so dunderheaded.
You figure this is a colony ...or worse?

[realpc]

"I think most leftists have a healthy suspicion of large scale government ownership of certain sectors of the economy. I just wish others had a healthy suspicion of the social pathologies inherent in "free" market systems."

Of course, leftists are so much more sensible and balanced than rightists. In the opinion of leftists, at least.

It is perfectly obvious that going too far towards either socialism or capitalism throws everything out of wack. It is perfectly obvious that government, business and labor all have to keep each other is check.

I have often wondered why any individual joins the left or the right. Can't they see that it's a dynamic balance? But I guess that's how the system works.

For example, I have never seen a post by Mark Thoma that pointed out a defect in leftist ideas. He takes the leftist position on everything at all times. He must know that the right has some good ideas and the left has some bad ideas. But his role is to speak for the left. The same is true of Krugman.

On some level, maybe subconsciously, they MUST know that their views are slanted.

[dolphy]

Denis Drew wrote:

Perhaps if Marx were born into a freer culture like America instead of nineteenth century Europe, he might have thought of that more natural scheme of checks and balances to protect labor in the free market -- adequately organized labor -- instead of coming up with his crackpot alternate history scheme of common ownership of the means of production -- which a billion-plus people were subjected to for 70 years.

Actually, after a year in the U.S. working as a reporter for the NY Herald Tribune, Marx wrote that the U.S. didn't need a revolution because we had trade unions. He also wrote late in life that "I am not a Marxist." This latter comment arose from his dismay at the direction that Marxist political parties had taken in Europe. The ironies abound... As we all know, this had not the slightest influence on Lenin or Trotsky.

I find it peculiar that on one hand, many anticommunists argue that the Soviet Union’s rise & fall were inevitable results of Marx’s philosophy, while on the other, diehard Marxists claim that yes, the Soviet Union was a disaster, but it wasn’t true communism—only a form of state socialism. Each implicitly endorses a teleological view of the relationship between theory and practice that is contradicted by the historical evidence.

The former assumes a theoretical determinism, thereby trivializing the roles of individual actors in the creation and unraveling of that social system. Would it have been possible for the Bolshevik revolution to have taken a different shape and led to a differently structured society? Of course, that’s a gigantic contrathetical that’s unlikely to be tested in the foreseeable future given the results of the first experiment. But is it far fetched to observe that the personal qualities of Lenin and Stalin (to mention only the most prominent actors in that drama) gave the revolution and its aftermath their peculiar flavors? Likewise, the roles of culture and contingency cannot be underestimated. Regarding the former, for example, it has been commented by many observers that Russia’s long history of cruel and undemocratic leadership effectively socialized the population of that country to think and act conspiratorially, thus making likely a resurgence of those qualities in whatever society would succeed the tsars.

The latter line of argument also assumes a theoretical determinism, but from the vantage point of belief in a utopian future. It is true that the Soviet Union represented a form of state socialism. However, continued faith in an ideal socialist future overlooks the fact that any practical implementation of an ideology will be bent by both protagonists and opposition to fit the context within which it is actualized. And that context will include the existing array of patterns and practices of thought and behavior Berger and Luckmann termed the social construction of reality; it will also include the material conditions of a society (what Marx termed the “base”); it will include power relations (however fluid they may be); and many other things, few of which are under anyone’s control, particularly when social relations are rent asunder by a cateclysm such as world war or revolution (or both). Given all the factors above (plus the many I’ve neglected to mention), how can anyone retain childlike faith in the inevitability of some sort of socialist (or any other) utopia?

Just my two cents...

[anne]

The discussion is interesting, but simply think a moment of the irony that comes with such a phrase:

"Perhaps if Marx were born into a freer culture like America instead of nineteenth century Europe...."

[Don Quijote]

Would it have been possible for the Bolshevik revolution to have taken a different shape and led to a differently structured society?

Probably not, had Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin & company not been first class bastards, they would have failed, had their asses put against a wall and been shot.

Which is exactly what happened to the Communards in 1870 after the French Elites cooperated with the Germans, to whom they had just lost a war, to starve the Paris Commune and to take the city back. Having done so, they proceeded to shoot roughly 20 thousand Communards in cold blood and exiled a bunch of them.

Lesson learned, if you're going to have a revolution, just kill the Local Elites, if you fail they will kill you.

[Denis Drew]

Ann said:
The discussion is interesting, but simply think a moment of the irony that comes with such a phrase: "Perhaps if Marx were born into a freer culture like America instead of nineteenth century Europe...."

Ann,
While I sleep please explain what you mean. You are not one of those about whom George Orwell wrote his essay, "Why Intellectuals Always Hate Their Country", are you?

Just as a preamble, you understand don't you, that in nineteenth century England, supporters of universal suffrage for men were not even allowed to maintain correspondence societies and that anyone who openly advocated such a right was on his way to jail and after that Australia (England's gulag)? The events in France are widely known.

[reason]

Realpc
For example, I have never seen a post by Mark Thoma that pointed out a defect in leftist ideas. He takes the leftist position on everything at all times. He must know that the right has some good ideas and the left has some bad ideas. But his role is to speak for the left. The same is true of Krugman.

You have a funny idea realpc of where the center lies. Where does Atilla the Hun come on your left/right scale (not that I think the left/right scale is a particularly sensible way to order things)?

[reason]

Dolphy,
welcome (you are new to me), a truly brilliant comment.

Having dissed the marxists, please diss the glibertarians in the same way on some other thread.

[Lafayette]

calmo: but in Marx's time it was more of a distinction...and more of a threat to the powerful who ruled the basically illiterate, yes? Yes?

A politician on the make

Oh, yes. Agreed, Marx took a childish liking to upsetting vested interests. Still, the best judgment of his work is and shall remain, I think, that whilst he got the analysis right, his solution was dead wrong.

Whilst there's much buzz about blogging, most seems to attribute to it some magical power to change "things", e.g., the political scene.

I don't see that in the least. Blogging is tantamount to letting off steam. That's about all. We've been doing it in forums for at least 7 years on the Internet, I think.

I doubt it influences politicians in the least, except perhaps to participate in order to show that they are "with it". Heaven forbid that they not be "with it", especially in an election year.

Politicians cannot disconnect from their celebrity status, come down to the arena (even under a pseudo) and ... well, discuss things on a peer-to-peer level. They like to bounce things off the wall with their "kitchen cabinet" and advisors of all sorts. I suspect they work best by osmosis, absorbing some good ideas and failing to absorb others.

Above all, they are mirrors. They are reflecting to the public a mirror image in a way such that most voters will say, "Hey, he/she is looking good. I think I'll vote for him/her".

Imagine a chameleon changing colours with each changing constituency. Ya got it - a politician on the make!

NB: Moreover, I suggest that blogging is not really debate. It is a means of personal expression and an exchange of ideas. But it misses the essence of debate, which is a bit more structured - whereas blogging meanders all over the place. Also, in debate, a debater does not get the chance, often, to choose sides. The sides are chosen for them, and they have the task of defending its POV. It's a great place for lawyers.

[bob mcmanus]

"how can anyone retain childlike faith in the inevitability of some sort of socialist (or any other) utopia?"

Well, you apparently know more Marxism than I do, but I thought the primary question was about the stability and sustainability of liberal bourgeois capitalism and there are certainly many more great minds than only Marx that felt the question needed to be confronted. I couldn't begin to list them all, or even those in the first quarter of the 20th century. We need an answer to Schumpeter's pessimism, and we need to a deeper look at Keynes' prescription.

"that whilst he got the analysis right, his solution was dead wrong."

I didn't think they were so easily separable, although I would use the word consequence rather than solution. Labor theory of value, alienation, declining rate of profits, lumpenproletariat, revolution. I think you have to discard large chunks of the analysis to avoid the predictions.

Unless you think Bernstein solved the problems of capitalism. I think it is still too soon to tell.

[reason]

Lafayette..
No I think blogging matters more than that. A lot of people that were not connected now are. And some of those who are connected are influencial are in turn are subtly influenced. I sometimes have my ideas coming back at me without attribution and it gives me a warm glow inside.

[Lafayette]

bm: Unless you think Bernstein solved the problems of capitalism. I think it is still too soon to tell.

Pretty damn good questions

Well, I don't (think he solved them)... but Leonard certainly wrote/conducted some very nice music.

Dismissing communism or its half-brother socialism in a blog post is dead easy. The length and breadth of the subject cannot even be considered let alone be dealt with in a blog.

The challenge, to my mind, that capitalist-based western democracies are facing is the stand-off between "socialism with a human face" as developed in post-war Europe and "capitalism with a plutocratic face" as has emerged in the US.

Few will deny that, with even a casual look at the Gini-coefficients, something is VERY wrong in America's income distribution when contrasting it with European countries. (Of course, one can always bring the debate down a rat-hole by attacking the calculation's methodology, but that will get us nowhere.)

And, any cursory review of mentalities will indicate that Americans are fixated on low-taxation (in order to maximize personal revenue for consumption) whereas the Europeans are willing to accept higher taxation (if the state will use the tax revenues to provide Public Services). If those are not pretty clear “givens”, then please explain how.

From that starting point, all the rest is a matter of debate. If, for Americans, the "pursuit of happiness" need translate directly into "money burns a hole in my pocket so I gotta spend faster than I earn it" -- then that is America's choice of a consumer-oriented society. Whether such brings either "happiness" or "well-being" to most of America's middle-class is, however, a worthwhile but subjective debate. (I.e., you tell me.)

I won’t doubt for a moment that Europeans are not good consumers. They enjoy the same accoutrements of a middle-class (bourgeoisie) existence as their Yank counterparts. But, having lived for long stretches of time in both places, I think (imho) that Europeans are getting a better deal in terms of Public Services, the bottom line of which is to enhance their well-being and better its quality.

Whether France has better fashion taste, or Germany better made cars or Italy better wines … all these are amusing consumerist discussions. But, they have very, very little to do really with the overall well-being for the population as a whole. This latter is decided by economic policy, meaning (quite simply) this: How is wealth generated? Who gets its? And, how much of it are they allowed to keep? What does a nation do with the rest?

Each of those questions is not easily answered. Which is why they are pretty damn good questions.

[Lafayette]

reason: And some of those who are connected are influencial are in turn are subtly influenced. I sometimes have my ideas coming back at me without attribution and it gives me a warm glow inside.

I hope so, reason, I hope so. But, I don't think so. (Subtle difference, there, between the two.)

Forums have been around for a while. (I first participated in a chatroom on a DEC/VMS system in 1983, or thereabout.) They have never, in my experience, innovated new tendencies in thought. Yes, they bring more people into the discussion, but I don't sense how forums change mentalities. I suspect, in fact, they simply confirm them.

They are presently enjoying considerably more "celebrity status". That too will pass. (Sic transit gloria mundi ...)

Frankly, I think their impact is far, far more subtle and if mind-set transformation occurs it is certainly years and years in the making. (So, let's keep it up ... we got a long row to hoe. ;^)

[Denis Drew]

Lafayette,
You seem to be indulging in the usual dichotomy supposed to divide the European from American way of economic life: the welfare state v. the free market. The core difference (which makes the welfare state possible at all over there) is the total control of labor through adequate organization over there (at least it seems total to a totally powerless worker over here -- me) and American labor's almost total lack of bargaining power in our free market. To wit, my latest diatribe on the subject:
******************
The race to the bottom hit American labor only sporadically (late 1800s, interwar and starting early 70s) and never as harshly or as it hit European workers steadily from the early 1800s on. By the last half of the twentieth century Europeans got a grip on the problem of out of control wage tailspin: sector-wide labor agreements (or equivalents like the French/Quebec practice of requiring all firms to work under conditions negotiated by union firms) -- a solution that makes life easier for ownership as well as labor according to its users.

The worst of the race to the bottom works like this: The maximum business can possibly pay labor in any market is just short of the labor expense that push it into the red. The lowest wage labor can possibly accept is enough to barely keep body and soul together. In between is room for fair free market play. Upon the advent of industrialization the maximum ownership could pay sometimes became the least labor could accept -- both meeting at the (not quite dead) wage bottom.

Individual weavers who once made a fair living were succeeded by 100 (?) times more productive, but replaceable, steam loom operators who were reduced not merely to subsistence but to the lowest level of same, living on oat cakes three times a day, unable even to afford wheat bread. In like manner California supermarket workers today cannot hang on to their previously settled pay scales because poor paying Wal-Mart is entering the retail food market.

American workers (and their progressive professional helpers) mostly seem not to have sensed the nature of the unnecessary lid that has been placed on their economic prosperity for over a third of a century now.

If we could somehow have predicted to Americans of the 50s and 60s that, by early 2007, a quarter of our workforce would be earning less than the minimum wage of the late 60s (approaching 10$/hr in today's money), the only explanation they might have been able to think of for such an astoundingly bleak economic future might have been a small atomic war, multiple depressions or even a mini-ice age.

It is long overdue for progressive professionals to alert mostly economically unaware Americans to what is happening. Begin by creating an alternative, "Team B" poverty standard (the 2002 book Raise the Floor contains a professionally worked out example) for the media to talk about to -- which should double the currently mis-reported poverty rate to about 25%. No more news organizations limited to reporting only on a grossly misleading poverty rate -- based on three (3) times the price of a barely survivable diet (dried beans only, no canned beans allowed -- no oat cakes: mid-twentieth century standard)!

It is also overdue for unfettered market theory to take its place along side (yes) communism as an equal no-brainer -- for exactly the same reason -- both all promising panaceas completely neglect the one factor it takes to produce fair and balanced human interaction: adequate checks and balances.

BTW, supercharging labor's economic power will simultaneously supercharge labor's political power. Who could ask for a better American prospect?

[Lafayette]

DD: The core difference (which makes the welfare state possible at all over there) is the total control of labor through adequate organization over there

You need a lesson in European labor organization.

Organized labor rarely represents more than 10% of the labor force in any European country. Often it is only 5%. So, how is it that "organized labor" here in Europe has more of an influence than "organized labor" in the US?

Largely because it employs sympathetic influence, that is, their strikes earn sympathy from the larger population as a whole -- which is why European governments fear labor disproportionate influence.

If this is not the case stateside, and I seriously suspect that it is not, ask yourself the question, Why not?

My answer: The individualism prevalent in the US, as its core cultural value, deprives it of the worker cohesion that should exist across a working class. (People don't understand that what is happening to one worker on strike today could be happening to them the next.)

Example: When Reagan fired the air-traffic controllers, if the American work force uniformly walked off the job, Reagan would have likely been forced to cave in (by pressure from his Republican constituency).

But, that didn't happen, and the consequence is the rather bare plate off which US labor must nourish itself today.

The essence of organized labor is the leveraged cohesion beyond any one particular boundary (union, state or political party). And, once you lose it, it's lost for a good long time. How many children known the history of the US labor movement versus how many know how Bill Gates made his fortune?

This post is opportune to bring up another point: Labor has focused historically on wages and working conditions. Which means that it is part of the problem and not the solution.

The "solution" is a profitable company, so labor should be negotiating for a cut of the profit pie and not an automatic increase in factor costs (as represented by increased salaries). I suggest that its got its target sights wrongly pointed.

And, like Europe, it should be fighting for representation at the place where executive decisions are made and from which company operations are scrutinized. If companies opine that "our most valued asset is our personnel", then why is their "MVA" not represented on the BoD?

Because what the company opined is media pap for the masses to make them look "caring".

Caring? Me arse.

[Denis Drew]

Lafayette,
I've never been to Europe -- only started to look into economics here in my late 50s. But, I understand that in Germany, by law, everyone doing the same kind of work in the same locale must work under a unified contract even for different firms: sector-wide labor agreements.

In France I understand that only 8% of workers are unionized but that all non-unionized firms must operate under terms worked out by unionized firms. I have read that sector-wide setups being more or less the norm in many or most of fully modern (as in best paid) European countries.

You have touched on the core, core problem. Americans don't have a clue to what is hitting them. I am an excellent example; except for one 15 year stretch in NYC's badlands (an education itself) I kept up with the political books, mags and talking heads my starting in my late teens but never heard a suggestion of the shockers I bumbled into when I started doing a little looking on my own, like:
25% of the workforce earning less than the 1968 minimum wage!!!; the poverty number would be more like 25% if it weren't based on three times the minimum survivable diet (madness!)!!!

The press tells us nothing because the press know nothing and doesn't have enough sense to look -- that's our totally ignorant culture. Americans have our self-reliant pioneer ethic alright. Our labor history isn't nearly as tragic as the Europeans -- which is why we have been able to remain off guard.

You are right that Europeans many not need to depend on unions alone -- they are all "Minutemen" when it comes to ownership watch. That's because their more terrible labor history created just that labor culture.

About 4 years ago I started emailing the above hopefully so-called "inequality" stats to every journalist or masthead name with an address -- about 25,000 emails. Inequality is too anemic a term for good salesmanship -- at first it sounds like the few beset by the many instead of the other way around (I don't blame the few for taking what they can -- human nature -- I "blame" us for not knowing enough to get ours first like the Europeans).

"The race to the bottom" better reflects the scope of the catastrophe and explains it in the same breath.

[calmo]

Thank you, "in your late 50s" Denis, for gracing the board with your youthful, diligent, and indefatigable human capital.
Dang if I didn't think everything was Alright with your post too:You have touched on the core, core problem. Americans don't have a clue to what is hitting them. I am an excellent example;I just don't have this kind of bravery, but you are imperturbable...such is that core, core confidence.
I can toughen up. I must!

paine's my team's
eternal captain
always can use some added exposure"captain"
not coach, not manager,
not quarterback.
"team" not group, not association,
not party.
The whole business of "eternal"
is to placate the misery
of Here and Now
with Hope.
Couldit B the lack of exposure
to Marx is expeditin the
Revolution?

[wjd123]

And, like Europe, it should be fighting for representation at the place where executive decisions are made and from which company operations are scrutinized. If companies opine that "our most valued asset is our personnel", then why is their "MVA" not represented on the BoD?--Lafayette

Lafayette,

I couldn't agree more. One would think that there would be a lot less conflict between labor and management if labor had a seat at the table to point out problems before they become issues. Problems becoming issues is more likely to happen if labor doesn't have a say in the businesses agenda.

However, whether or not this is true there is a more important reason for giving labor a say in the business agenda: it strengthens the legitimacy of the political economy. For instance, the problem of procedural fairness (see, Dani Roderic) for labor is often overlooked when business compete globally. Without that problem being addressed conflict in society is heightened which is more likely to be resolved by naked power plays which in turn de-legitimizes the political economy. For legitimacy's sake when values conflict better to have a negotiated settlement than an imposed one.

http://rodrik.typepad.com/dani_rodriks_weblog/2007/04/trade_and_proce.html