
`Half of Americans Are Effectively Poor Now. What The? - Balgair
https://eand.co/half-of-americans-are-effectively-poor-now-what-the-c944c518db6a
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AnimalMuppet
> People that really understand political economy have a saying: “capitalism
> implodes into fascism.” That’s because it produces mass poverty, not riches,
> decline, not upward mobility — and the new poor then turn on everyone,
> neighbours, friends, allies, values, morals. If that sounds eerily like
> America today... then you should be able to see America tomorrow, too.

So much wrong in one paragraph. "People who really understand have this
saying," so if you don't agree with the saying, you don't really understand.
That's a nice little manipulative technique. Second, the saying sounds like
it's saying that capitalism always does this, not that it's a failure more
(maybe even the primary failure mode) of capitalism.

Then there's the sentence after the saying. Capitalism produces mass poverty?
Nah, capitalism's not that great. It actually produces mass poverty more
inefficiently than any other system. ;-)

But it's still a real problem. The US middle class is dying. The bottom half
of the middle class is dead. I mean, they can still live like the 1950s middle
class - a 1950s-size house, one car, very little eating out, no electronics,
and a 1950s life expectancy. That's not very good for a first-world country
with a great economy.

So: We were leading the world. Now we aren't. What broke? My guess:
globalization. It's hard to have first-world wages when you have to compete
with people making third-world wages. The result is that our lower middle
class effectively do not have first world wages.

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blacksqr
The US is still a functioning democracy, more or less. Vote smarter, people.

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wmeredith
Not according to a 2014 Princeton study; the US is an Oligarchy:

“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups
representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US
government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have
little or no independent influence.”

[https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-
echochambers-27074746](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746)

~~~
blacksqr
Oligarchy is the default setting of society. If we have it here in America,
it's because we don't vote smart.

