THE GREATCESSATION
the Great Cessation, the jobless rate was the lowest in 50 years and a record-low for Black and Hispanic workers. Average hourly wages were climbing at a 3% pace, and lower income wages were growing faster than wages near the top. In historical terms, average family homes are nearly twice as large as they were back when the Brady Bunch shared a shag-carpeted split-level in the 1970s. Since the late 1950s, when Leave it to Beaver aired, life expectancy has jumped 10 years (despite a recent opioid-induced setback). Back in the Beaver days, it took a median laborer two weeks to afford a new refrigerator. Today, a median worker can walk into Walmart or Home Depot and buy a refrigerator after about two and half days of labor. So why is capitalism backpedaling like a skinny-legged fighter scared of Mike Tyson before he got the Maori tattoo on his face and made a cameo appearance with a doped-up tiger in The Hangover ? I would argue that it’s not about debt statistics or the actual financial impact of popped bubbles in tech and real estate. If it were, the rage against capitalism would have subsided as the job market roared ahead. Instead, we don’t see much correlation between jobs and the ardor to dump hardcore capitalism in favor of something that promises to be cuddlier and less competitive. We are confronting a backlash against capitalism because of its success , not because of its failure. Though I wish I could say I am the only one to have thought of this, I will call on three disparate deponents, the first of them a surprise witness... Karl Marx himself wrote that socialism
decamped to Switzerland in the 1970s, moved back home. Do American socialists know that Sweden’s corporate tax rate was lower than the U.S. rate for 25 years until Donald Trump came to Washington and slashed U.S. levels all the way down to the same low 21% rate as Sweden? We are confronting a backlash against capitalism because of its success , not because of its failure. Some might argue that we should dump capitalism because all has gone wrong. It’s not difficult to wave around depressing statistics... Even before the coronavirus hit the U.S., the Federal Reserve reported that 40% of American families did not have $400 in the bank to use in case of emergency. Their “break the glass” moment has arrived, and some cupboards are bare. Every politician has memorized a talking point about $1.6 trillion in student debt, not to mention Medicare liabilities of $37 trillion, even before “Medicare for All” comes before Congress. Meanwhile, mega-rich media mogul David Geffen takes a selfie of his own gleaming yacht at sunset and posts it online, along with a note assuring us that we can stop worrying whether he has a safe place to sleep during the virus outbreak. Now we know why he named his first company Asylum Records. Such impolite and impolitic missives make it tough to defend capitalism for those of us who don’t have Barbra Streisand on speed dial. Some of the dire statistics are rebuttable, and there is plenty of good news, too. Until
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April 2020
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