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Showing Original Post only (View all)Chomsky: Business Elites Are Waging a Brutal Class War in America [View all]
http://www.alternet.org/economy/chomsky-business-elites-are-waging-brutal-class-war-americaAn article that recently came out in Rolling Stone, titled Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail, by Matt Taibbi, asserts that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, such as those running HSBC. Taibbi says that theres an arrestable class and an unarrestable class. What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?
Well, theres always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscioustheyre constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized.
We dont use the term working class here because its a taboo term. Youre supposed to say middle class, because it helps diminish the understanding that theres a class war going on.
Its true that there was a one-sided class war, and thats because the other side hadnt chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers, say the autoworkerswould get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldnt engage the general class structure. In fact, thats one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesnt. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, its a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and weve seen what has happened since.
This is just one part of a long and continuing class war against working people and the poor. Its a war that is conducted by a highly class-conscious business leadership, and its one of the reasons for the unusual history of the U.S. labor movement. In the U.S., organized labor has been repeatedly and extensively crushed, and has endured a very violent history as compared with other countries.
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Can't find much in there to disagree with. Minimum wage with no benefits is the new
Flatulo
Nov 2013
#3
Okay DUers, from now on its "working class" not "middle class", say it everywhere. nt
MrYikes
Nov 2013
#5
I've referred to myself and my peers as working class for some time now. Should be said with pride
Populist_Prole
Nov 2013
#19
One thing he gets very well here, although he doesn't say it outright......
socialist_n_TN
Nov 2013
#8
Yep. That's called an "aristocracy of labor" (I'm sure you knew that).........
socialist_n_TN
Nov 2013
#10
And in this regard, they deserve a bashing or two. Unions are great when they work,
Egalitarian Thug
Nov 2013
#15