"On the last day of his presidency, in his last speech, President Ronald Reagan recalled what someone had once written to him: “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”
He continued: “We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation. While other countries cling to the stale past, here in America we breathe life into dreams. We create the future, and the world follows us into tomorrow. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and always on the cutting edge, always leading the world to the next frontier. This quality is vital to our future as a nation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”
Letters from an American Historian
Even Ronald 'Effing' Reagan got this much. And even if his class war policies against labor and workers, the so-called Reagan Revolution, actually setup the conditions for the backlash against immigrants we are experiencing now. The problem wasn't (and still isn't) immigrants or global trade or multiculturalism but letting capital and big business use global trade and cheap immigrant labor to escape paying living wages and to evade paying taxes for the kinds of public infrastructure that spreads economic growth to all.
Diversity and multiculturalism are fine, good customer relations, as long as Big Biz is free to monopolize markets and hoard vast fortunes but when democratic pressures for raising wages or spending on infrastructure becomes too much, and mind you any taxes or regulations are too much to the business class, than cultural diversity and liberalism are scapegoated as the problem and austerity measures, cutting spending in the caring economy, demanded. And, to be sure, such public goods and democratic costs, health care, education, public safety, etc, can put a burdensome squeeze on small businesses and workers, but exempting rich corporations from these costs, from Walmart to McDonalds, is actually the biggest factor squeezing the regular economy and polarizing society.
In a way this lopsided tug-o-war between capital and labor is at least as old as the industrial revolution and is always ebbing and flowing: big shots run the economy into the ground and then the gov steps in to restart the economy, bailing out business interests "too big to fail," establishing some guardrails to hopefully avoid repetition of the latest bust scenario, and everyone goes back to work until another loophole or another market is discovered to exploit and the next boom is on. Rinse and repeat. Of course, economic justice and social justice matter ("No Justice, No Peace"); and the gov should break up the monopolies and establish a living wage floor for all labor employed by large businesses, starting with all gov work and contracts. But the billionaires would rather try to manage a crazy sadistic megalomaniac than even contemplate taking such a haircut to their financial privileges. This struggle is not new.
What is relatively new are the threats and challenges posed by global warming and climate change. And the problem isn't just that global warming is predominantly a market failure-- externalities, pumping too much carbon into the atmosphere. The problem is that addressing climate change and bending the economy towards environmental sustainability requires industrial policy, environmental regulations, government financing and guidance. But free market political-economy, neoliberalism, the ruling economic orthodoxy in the US, opposes such a role for gov, obstructs and even sabotages gov efforts to address climate change. Just look at the policies of the current administration; burn baby burn, etc.
The problem isn't poor immigrants. The problem is the rich don't want to pay living wages and taxes necessary to building a sustainable economy and prosperous society. They only know how to get rich by extractive and predatory behavior; the collaborative and collective side of prosperity is completely lost on them. And many, a winning plurality, or 49.8% of the electorate at any rate, believe we're better off with this business mentality running the country. I hope the US can still reverse course but I think this path cuts the US off from a better future, and makes the US weaker and more dangerous.
Thanks again, HCR!
No comments:
Post a Comment