General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A segment of DU is very invested in painting a dystopian picture of the US [View all]PatrickforO
(14,602 posts)A dystopian future indeed, though I would not speak of jobs and labor market participation, or even minor gains in wages - though do show this as 'increased more' rather than 'began at...in...and ended at....in...' So this doesn't give us much basis for comparison. The truth is real wages have stagnated for the bottom three quintiles, risen slightly for the 4th and risen on a much steeper trendline for the top quintile. Which leads us to the first underlayment of our dystopian future:
1. Income and wealth inequality
Since much of this inequality is based on our tax code, we can also cite:
2. Deterioration of social programs that help Americans, and crumbling infrastructure
But, hey - we got the new F-35!!! What's that? Oh. It isn't ready yet - can't fly in thunderstorms...dang!
3. Current understanding of fiduciary responsibility of CEOs in publicly held firms as being ONLY to increase value for shareholders without regard to labor, and environment; add to this the immoral view of environmental disasters that the company(ies) can get away without paying for as 'externalities'
4. The fragile gains we've made in jobs (with good mfg jobs lost to NAFTA being replaced by lower wage service jobs) will end when the TPP goes into effect - it is NAFTA on steroids and we will lose millions of good jobs
Finally, the piece de resistance - the true dystopian elephant in the room...
5. Global warming and mass extinction - right now we are destroying the earth to turn a profit
Is there hope? Sure. But we've got to get money out of politics and recognize the current model of neoliberal capitalism for the cancer it is. It is simply unsustainable - we need to begin organizing our economy around some more regenerative concepts. In fact, there's a very hopeful essay out there called 'Regenerative Capitalism.'
Of course, we also have a populist rebellion in Congress and two populist Dems running against the establishment one. And we're seeing a building groundswell of populist revolt amongst rank and file Dems and Independents that is growing into a tsunami.