Can the Middle Class survive the shift to globalism? How will the Dems

[Dover]

achieve it? The middle class was created in large part of necessity to support a rising industrialism in our cities that replaced an agricultural era. So what will be the foundation of a 'new' middle class?


By changing our policies on outsourcing?
By re-establishing a manufacturing base?
By lowering wages to compete with third world countries?
Or by raising the wages and working conditions of those third world laborers?
Will human hands find new work after having been replaced by robotics and other technological advances that have put people out of work?

I'm just trying to understand how it's gonna work and if the Dems have fully explained their policy ideas and vision in this regard?

[PVnRT]

1. There will be no middle class

What we will see is more wealth concentrated in the hands of an incredibly wealthy elite. But we will be told that this is necessary for everyone's prosperity, blah blah blah.

I swear, mercantilism looks better every day.

[K-W]

2. Industrialization didnt create the middle class.

It just moved the working class from the fields to the factories. At that point the middle class was still basically limited to the merchant and professtional class.

It was liberalization that created the middle class that we have now, where workers were able to join the middle class.

Globalization threatens to take all those workers down the the working class and remove many skilled workers as well.

We will be back to pre-liberalization if we keep globalizaing as we are.

Then it will take a global liberlization movement to have a new-new deal.

[lapfog_1]

3. I haven't heard of any good solutions

including all that you listed.

If you find a workable answer, please post, I'm sure that we can
get you an interview with Lou Dobbs.
(same goes for me).

What I think is ironic is that the people pushing us into being
a third world country (and the largest debtor nation in the world)
haven't properly thought this through themselves.

You see, the fundamental flaw is that our economy is NOT driven by
capital, it's driven by consumers. This is the fundamental mistake
of all supply siders and trickle down theorists. It didn't work
in the eighties and it won't work now (tax cuts are not the key
to robust economic growth, only temporary bandages on corporate
earnings).

So eventually, in the New World Order of globalism, we all work
at Walmart, selling cheap foreign made crap to the remaining owner
class of Americans... but even that doesn't last, as most people
that work at Walmart cannot afford to shop at Walmart. And when
Walmart collaspes... the shit will hit the fan... think depression
worse than the 30's.

[K-W]

4. Capitalism as we know it can only last too long.

If we end it before it ends us, we can survive.

[Dover]

5. Well there are millions of bright, well educated Americans who simply need

to have their imaginations sparked. Clinton said in his speech that the Dems REALLY want to provide citizens with the tools they need to build our future. I suggest to them that while we do indeed need the tools, we also should be actively participating in the planning of our collective futures as co-creators, architects of our own destinies. If the Democratic party were REALLY willing to experiment in that level of participatory government, it would ignite hope, excitement and a Renaissance in this country.

We don't simply need work. We need a great vision that we all feel we can share in.

WE THE PEOPLE are not simply laborers and consumers, but are the heart and soul and imagination that fuels the engine of this country regardless of who THINKS they run the show. Without tapping that collective source, we are nothing.

[K-W]

6. Right now america doesnt want ideas.

If you use yor imagination on economics you are a communist.

Capitalism must be worshipped.

[wuushew]

7. Massive public works and spending

Funded by taxing the rich. Since we have reached a point in civilization where the number of people needed to manufacture any given product is quite low because of automation(or cheap third world outsourcing).

The solution is to massively fund institutions like NASA was in the 1960's. Trained scientists and engineers existed in far greater numbers than needed by private companies. In this way instead of settling for demeaning corporate work people were paid well and reward for their considerable skills. Additionally much untapped worked could be given to social work or government patronage of the arts. The human endeavor must be explored to the fullest, not smothered by destroying the middle class.