Dear Friends,
It seems to me, people are getting screwed by the system, and the system’s solution… is to give the system more power to screw you. Politicians like Occasio Cortez, Bernie Sanders, etc… like to cite this as a reason to give those who are defrauding us unlimited power. Supposedly, then they will turn virtuous, once they have total power. Obviously this message resonates most effectively with children. People without the life experience to know better. These, shockingly, are also the people most likely to be caught by an idea. Because young people haven’t experienced enough to put ideas into context. I thought Marxism was fine and dandy, until I read about it and the history of it. Ignorant, Pollianish and unwise youth, have not learned about life, let alone history… and so are the progressive’s zealots.
The statistics on the decline of the middle class in the industrialized nations is undeniable. The question then becomes, why? Why have our once great industrial cities been hollowed out, to become cesspools of drug addiction, gang violence, crime, unemployment and hopelessness? The progressive’s who run those places would say it is the fault of evil, patriarchal, hegemonic, racist capitalists, who seek profit over the betterment of their fellow man! There is no end to Marxist rhetoric to “prove” their case. Studiously avoiding history in context, economics, psychology and wield Cartesian skepticism like a scalpel. Carefully avoiding cutting themselves with it. This is required for progressives, socialists and Marxists… because their philosophy has been disproved so many times and in so many ways.
Lets instead use these powerful tools of logic to discern if capitalism is actually the reason for the hollowing out of the middle class, or perhaps there may be some deeper, hidden reason. A reason we are directed away from… by red herrings. History is explanatory. In the 1960’s LBJ declared a war on poverty. Since then, the US has spent trillions of dollars to eliminate poverty, yet the results are quite the opposite. Poverty has not only increased, but the class mobility that was inherent in the capitalist US, has now become mired in the welfare state. One of the primary factors was the destruction of the nuclear family in certain demographic groups. The State replaced the father, which has led to diminished life outcomes, outside any other individual quality… like IQ or conscientiousness.
The rise of multinational corporations coincided with the growth in government in the US and Europe. As governments grew larger and less transparent, corporations grew more powerful and less locked to the profit loss equation. Because their profits no longer depended on the consumer… but government favor. I don’t know the date it changed, but at some point, probably in the 1990s, it became more lucrative for a corporation to “invest” in lobbying… than in new plant, workers or innovation. They say that concurrence does not denote cause, but when two things corroborate so closely, they do bare investigation. At the same time, regulations passed by the Administrative State, hindered the startup of small businesses, creating a lopsided economy, top heavy and bottom light.
When Trump was running for office, Obama famously said, how is he going to get the US to 3% growth, there is no magic button… but apparently there was. It was in repealing progressive regulations, taxes and policies. Changing the paradigm to one where wages are rising, unemployment is at record lows, especially in previously underemployed communities, and people again have hope for the future. (Except in progressive utopias). Progressives have run the US with nearly unlimited power for decades, and under their watch we have seen the family destroyed, wages lowered, savings stolen by inflation, as our children die of opioid overdoses. In three years Trump has reversed that by reversing progressive policies. A sane man can only conclude… it is progressivism that has screwed us.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
