Class and family in the US and A.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I've been musing about something. Beware, for I have mused and you are now subject to its consequences! Something came up with got me thinking about family and how class continuity can effect politics. For instance, anecdote-wise, about 3/4ths of those I know are worse off than their parents than their parents were at their age. The rest are either about the same or better off. What I have noticed is how some family mindsets are undergoing radical change due to class faults. Sure, families have always been schismatic, politically speaking. You have conservative wings and liberal wings and all that. But there is a certain break-down in communication occurring, as children are "left behind". Fathers and mothers are increasingly tut-tutting and murmuring, "I don't envy you guys."

On a deeper level, this is a radical redefinition of American attitudes. Not simply that America can be a place where the family legacy gets better, ever and ever upwards over time. But rather that families are simply happy with maintaining their status-quo. A lot of families have simply given up on the idea that they or their progeny will actually get more and more over time. Great swaths of America have plateaued.

But the deeper breakdown is that a 60s-90s middle-class American mindset is entirely different than a declining middle-class 2000s mindset. People are getting disgusted with their churches. Kids are revolting against the "happy-happy everything is grand" mindset of the housewife and successful father. Religious discourse and advice-giving is increasingly met with disdain as the next generation is given doses of meaningless bourgeois prattle about God, jobs and life.

Arguments are not simply political, but social and spiritual. A whole generation is saying, "That doesn't work!" It is not an argument, but a serious conflict. Not simply a "generational divide" between equally bourgeois groups arguing about politics or technology or whatever. But sharp, class-based logics running into each other.

But the more abstract question is what do these early fault-lines entail for the political process?

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They entail the clash of the Baby Boomer generation that contributed nothing whatsoever beyond shouting angrily and Woodstock and the smaller generations being screwed over by the seniors so they can keep their free welfare nets and young peoples' lots simply don't matter. The two interests are directly contradictory to each other and as Medicare and its like are currently defined the Baby Boomers will wreck the system unless some significant reforms are made of the very sort the same spoiled whining brats of the 1960s don't want because it might hurt them are made so this will last in the long term. US society is greying and what meets the interests of the selfish old people who make up the Tea Party is not what meets the interests of either young people or the long-term interest of the USA as either state or empire.

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

Oooh I wonder if Baby Boomers would like some ointment for that terrible burn.

But seriously, agreed.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Not only are you making sense, but your prose is almost fully coherent!

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, Woodstock was pretty rad.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I agree that the cultural split was greater in the 60s, but that was more over ideology than class. The 20th century was one long drawn out ideological battle, but the hippies were never a separate class of people, economically speaking.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

And I should say, left-wing resurgence as a result of ideological baubles is far different from left-wing resurgence as a result of class disparity. Which is why the hippies never actually did anything other than grow-up and move on. We have France and Russia, and to some extent Germany (even though that was more a nationalized poverty) to warn about the consequences of class disparity.

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

Empire leads to faction. Faction creates polarization. Social disintegration destroys trade and community relationships. Disintegrating trade and community relationships disrupts the economy and introduces more irrationality into the production system. The disintegrating economy cannot sustain the empire and it collapses in the face of one or more internal or external stressors. This is not an unfamiliar pattern.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Hey, welcome back!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

But the more abstract question is what do these early fault-lines entail for the political process?

There's little doubt in my mind that the scenario you have noticed is what fuels the entitlement culture in my generation and those younger than me. They had it well as kids because their parents are well off, and now they can't fathom working for it the way their folks did, so everyone else needs to jump in and share.

My wife and I make less money than my father's paycheck alone. In our case, it's no one's fault but our own - we chose career paths that don't pay as much, and our lives reflect that, and (most importantly) we're happy. In general, it seems many who are in our boat miss the second and third point and have a chip on their shoulders as a result.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

You need to come to terms with the fact that wages for workers have remained stagnant, in terms of real spending power, since about the 70's.

So while part of you making less than you father is a choice about which job field to go into, there's also the problem of ALL wages going down or remaining stagnant, in terms of real spending power/

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Counting down to the "it's the _____ generation's fault": 4, 3, 2, 1....

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

It's the Greatest, with their silly big band music and lack of hip hop and warrin' an' fightin' and total inability to use the Internet!!

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

How would your reasoning change if you knew that mobility hasn't actually decreased in America? (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286874/president-s-suspect-statistics-scott-winship)

And controlling for household size, 80% of Americans are better off than their parents before them (http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2011/1109_economic_mobility_winship.aspx#_ftn3).

Is that enough? No. And I don't think we should stop our commitment to helping the disadvantaged. But the doom-mongering actually causes harm. As the link says: "In this case bad evidence discourages people struggling to escape poverty. It unnecessarily increases Americans’ anxiety levels and adds to the general sense of gloom that has sapped consumer confidence, thereby increasing the agonizing slowness of the recovery."

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

And controlling for household size, 80% of Americans are better off than their parents before them.

Wow. I learned something today.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

How would your reasoning change if you knew that mobility hasn't actually decreased in America?
I don't really have a strict reasoning process on this, I was just musing about some things from what I'm seeing on the ground for now.

Is that enough?
Enough for what?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

And that was in the New York Times today. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?_r=1)

It’s becoming conventional wisdom that the U.S. does not have as much mobility as most other advanced countries,” said Isabel V. Sawhill, an economist at the Brookings Institution. “I don’t think you’ll find too many people who will argue with that.”

One reason for the mobility gap may be the depth of American poverty, which leaves poor children starting especially far behind. Another may be the unusually large premiums that American employers pay for college degrees. Since children generally follow their parents’ educational trajectory, that premium increases the importance of family background and stymies people with less schooling.

At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project (http://ftp.iza.org/dp1938.pdf) led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.

Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.

Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research (http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_FamiliesAcrossGenerations_ChapterI.pdf) by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.

By emphasizing the influence of family background, the studies not only challenge American identity but speak to the debate about inequality. While liberals often complain that the United States has unusually large income gaps, many conservatives have argued that the system is fair because mobility is especially high, too: everyone can climb the ladder. Now the evidence suggests that America is not only less equal, but also less mobile.

John Bridgeland, a former aide to President George W. Bush who helped start Opportunity Nation (http://www.opportunitynation.org/), an effort to seek policy solutions, said he was “shocked” by the international comparisons. “Republicans will not feel compelled to talk about income inequality (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/i/income/income_inequality/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier),” Mr. Bridgeland said. “But they will feel a need to talk about a lack of mobility — a lack of access to the American Dream.”

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

I think it means that the totally polarized politics of today aren't likely to mellow out anytime soon. It's not just a matter of entitlement; the Baby Boomers, logically to an extent, want what they paid into the system for (i.e. Medicare and Social Security), don't want those things "taken away," and want to keep them to the exclusion of anyone else, if necessary.

Today's generation says "that's not fair" in one of two ways: the left says that's not fair because everyone deserves proper healthcare and the system we have now can't support that, and needs change; the right says that's not fair because why should we have to pay for the healthcare of others through massive government programs? That's what the free market is for.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm not even worried about fairness. Me and my wife are literally fucked until 2014 when it comes to health care coverage. It's like, here's the game, play the game, but nope, fuck you, you're out of luck, go to hell.

Ok, that's fine, whatever. But what are we supposed to do?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

What a strange post about Political Utopia. I don't have your rose coloured specs to see what you're on about.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

An excellent point. I've been mulling that one for a few years, too.

What I fear is that the participants in this conflict will turn off the boob tube. Why fear? "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." I'm no Chomsky fan, but the quote has merit.

If the debate expands beyond the dictated spectrum of librul v. GAWP, we could see the kind of unrest faced just at and before the turn of the last century, like the attempted coup in '33 (avoided when Smedley Butler blew the whistle), the Wall St. bombings and the real labor unrest that killed dozens at a time.

In fact, what if the recent spate of noted legislation (like the open ended detentions (http://www.salon.com/2011/12/15/obama_to_sign_indefinite_detention_bill_into_law/)) and cross-border agreements (like the US and Canada agreeing to swap troops if they're needed to protect infrastructure or restore order (http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=403d90d6-7a61-41ac-8cef-902a1d14879d)) are the result of policy speculators seeing the need to keep order after a breakdown they anticipate?

The left is bashing the President because he supposedly reneged on campaign promises to roll back the power of the executive from the Draconian direction the Bushes were taking it. What if he was shown the sooper seekrit info that led to the formation of these policies, and worse, that these facts scared the hell out of him simply because they were probable?

The standard of living for the average person in the Western world rose steadily from 1820 to 1970. 150 years of progress creates a long-term mind-set locked in culture that might be very, very upset when these current crises don't pass, when instead our various declines, once thought temporary, prove permanent and worse than anticipated.

I hope the schism created by this decline (if it continues) remains confined to the political realm.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Wall Streeters and gov't had to have seen the writing on the wall long before the housing mortgage bubble collapsed in 2008. I mean they saw worthless deeds, bundled them and resold them as a brand new investment product. They compounded the debt and then recompounded it again. They knew this couldn't go on for infinity. They might not have known how it would burst, or how they would get out of it, but they knew damned well...

And so we also see the writing on the wall of the not-so-secret energy crisis. We see the writing on the wall where this corporate state lobbies the government of USA, mimicking Italian Fascism. We generally know the challenges we're going to be facing in the future. We just don't know the details of how, when and who it's going to effect. Of course preparations for the inevitable are being made!

Some people think OccupyWallStreet is over and I keep warning them not to be so naive. Occupy might be over in that form, but the unrest, the anger, the protest will continue because the people don't like what's going on. The CEO's paid big bucks for closing factories and moving to China. Wall Street telling government how to run the country. And unintelligent Richie Rich's running for President.

Of course the government is getting prepped for the revolution. They know it's coming. And they don't care.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

I was about to type out a comment about how the older generation didn't have the uncertainty about their future that the younger generation does now. Then I remembered something about the constant thought of nukes raining down...

So there is that uncertainty, probably a bit more serious (or just in a different level altogether) than me worrying about if I'll have a big bank account in 15 years, or if what's in it will be worth anything at that point anyway.

I assumed the 'disgusted with church' phase was just that - a late teen/college years thing that I'd get over and fade back out of around 35 or so. We'll see.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You're too full of yourself to write it, is that it?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Anecdote-wise, 4/5ths of those I know are better off than their parents were at their age. I don't know what that proves. Also, I'm pretty sure my liberal family members are not as well off as my conservative family members.

You can't have an increasing wealth forever, almost by definition.

But the more abstract question is what do these early fault-lines entail for the political process?

Probably nothing.

[whak-hat.livejournal.com]

It means that politicians are going to start getting new faces. No longer will we simply vote in the old white guy with his old-school ideas about how everyone should fit into their cookie-cutter shapes. We are changing, kicking and screaming of course, into a new world. 'Multiculturalism' is proving to be ineffective way to lose your entire country to a war you're not even aware you're fighting. Maintaining your old ways doesn't work either. So now we must evolve beyond both these ideals and become a new society, one that accepts differences while maintaining human rights above everything, even religion.

We can not give out a 'get out of jail free' card to every rapist because 'it's a part of his cuuuuuulture' bullshit that we've been doing. We can not continue to hate people because they have different cultures. Thus you see the monster of a problem we're facing and how the politicians are going to have to step up or change entirely to accommodate.

How do we accomplish all this though? Where do we start, how can we fix this monster? Do we even know how to break it down into smaller pieces so we can accomplish it better?

Let me give you a small example of the huge problem we face. Right now we are trying to tell the Chinese that foot binding is a horrid practice that disables the women it's inflicted upon (right from childhood). At the same time we get little girls (like 5 years old) to start wearing high heels. That's the same high heels that are proven to ruin your back, feet and brain and will eventually cripple the person in more ways then one (though that's after a lifetime of wear).

How in hell are we suppose to be 'evolving' when we can't get past our own 'culture' and 'traditions'. Politicians of right now are basically fully fucked because they're in the time of transition while also trying to cling to past ideals (that sucked, btw).

So now you know why we're going to have to get alllll new politicians. Not people who can make pretty speeches (Obama) or who can fight and make war like the best of them (Bush).

Sorry if that didn't make sense, I'm a terrible writer and have a hard time saying what I mean