The
Pew Research Center, released a new study on the size of the middle
class in the U.S. and in ten European countries. The study found that
the middle class shrank significantly in the U.S. in the last two
decades from 1991 to 2010. While it also shrank in several other
Western European countries, it shrank far more in the U.S. than
anywhere else. Meanwhile, another study also released last week, and
published in the journal Science, shows that class mobility in the
U.S. declined dramatically in the 1980s, relative to the generation
before that. A book released last March by MIT economist Peter Temin
argues that the U.S. is increasingly becoming what economists call a
dual economy; that is, where there are two economies in effect, and
one of the populations lives in an economy that is prosperous and
secure, and the other part of the population lives in an economy that
resembles those of some third world countries.
MIT
Economist Peter Temin spoke to Gregory Wilpert and the The
Real News network.
As Temin
states, among other things:
The
middle class is shrinking in the United States and this is an effect
of both the advance of technology and American policies. That is
shown dramatically in the new study, because the United States is
compared with many European countries. In some of them, the middle
class is expanding in the last two decades, and in others it's
decreasing. And while technology crosses national borders, national
policies affect things within the country.
In the
United States, our policies have divided us into two groups. Above
the median income - above the middle class - is what I call the FTE
sector, Finance, Technology and Electronics sector - of people who
are doing well, and whose incomes are rising as our national product
is growing. The middle class and below are losing shares of income,
and their incomes are shrinking as the Pew studies, both of them,
show.
The model
shows that the FTE sector makes policy for itself, and really does
not consider how well the low wage sector is doing. In fact, it wants
to keep wages and earnings low in the low wage sector, to provide
cheap labour for the industrial employment.
This model
is similar to that pursued in eurozone through the Greek experiment.
Yet, the establishment's decision centers still need the consent of
the citizens to proceed. They got it in France with the election of
their man to do the job, Emmanuel Macron.
As already
described,
the middle-class, which has not collapsed yet in France, still has
the characteristics that fit to the neoliberal regime. However, it is
obvious that this tank of voters has shrunk significantly, and the
establishment is struggling to keep them inside the desirable 'status
quo' with tricks like the supposedly 'fresh', apolitical image of
Emmanuel Macron, the threat of Le Pen's 'evil' figure that comes from
the Far-Right, or, the illusion that they have the right to
participate equally to almost every economic activity.
For example,
even in Greece, where the middle class suffered an unprecedented
reduction because of Troika's (ECB, IMF, European Commission)
policies, the last seven years, the propaganda of the establishment
attempts to make young people believe that they can equally
participate in innovative economic projects. The media promotes
examples of young businessmen who have succeed to survive
economically through start-up companies, yet, they avoid to tell that
it is totally unrealistic to expect from most of the Greek youth to
become innovative entrepreneurs. So, this illusion is promoted by the
media because technology is automating production and factories need
less and less workers, even in the public sector, which, moreover, is
violently forced towards privatization.
As mentioned
in previous
article, the target of the
middle class extinction in the West is to restrict the level of wages
in developing economies and prevent current model to be expanded in
those countries. The global economic elite is aiming now to create a
more simple model which will be consisted basically of three main
levels.
The 1%
holding the biggest part of the global wealth, will lie, as always,
at the top of the pyramid. In the current phase, frequent and
successive economic crises, not only assist on the destruction of
social state and uncontrolled massive privatizations, but also, on
the elimination of the big competitors.
In the
middle of the pyramid, a restructured class will serve and secure the
domination of the top. Corporate executives, big journalists,
scientific elites, suppression forces. It is characteristic that
academic research is directed on the basis of the profits of big
corporations. Funding is directed increasingly to practical
applications in areas that can bring huge profits, like for example,
the higher automation of production and therefore, the profit
increase through the restriction of jobs.
The base of
the pyramid will be consisted by the majority of workers in global
level, with restricted wages, zero labor rights, and nearly zero
opportunities for activities other than consumption.
This type of
dual economy with the rapid extinction of middle class may bring
dangerous instability because of the vast vacuum created between the
elites and the masses. That's why the experiment is implemented in
Greece, so that the new conditions to be tested. The last seven
years, almost every practice was tested: psychological warfare,
uninterrupted propaganda, financial coups, permanent threat for a
sudden death of the economy, suppression measures, in order to keep
the masses subservient, accepting the new conditions.
The
establishment exploits the fact that the younger generations have no
collective memories of big struggles. Their rights were taken for
granted and now they accept that these must be taken away for the
sake of the investors who will come to create jobs. These generations
were built and raised according to the standards of the neoliberal
regime 'Matrix'.
Yet, it is
still not certain that people will accept this Dystopia so easily.
The first signs can be seen already as recently, French
workers seized factory and threatened to blow it up in protest over
possible closure. Macron may discover soon that it
will be very difficult to find the right balance in order to finish
the job for the elites. And then, neither Brussels nor Berlin will be
able to prevent the oncoming chaos in Europe and the West.
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