What do Angela Merkel and Mitt Romney have in common?
by Richard Wolff.
PUBLISHED ON JULY 22, 2015
This article originally appeared at AlJazeera America
In May 2012, when Mitt Romney was campaigning for president, he made a
statement that summed up his economic views - and came to define his run for
office:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no
matter what," he said. These people "are dependent upon government, who
believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a
responsibility to care for them . I'll never convince them they should take
personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Germany's current leaders - and most of Europe's, as well - seem to fully
agree with this philosophy. They treat Greece exactly as though the country
fit Romney's description of that lazy, greedy 47 percent of Americans. And
Greece's experience prefigures what looms elsewhere: like Romney, many
European leaders appeal to their publics to embrace that perspective, often
effectively. This involves leading the hard-working 53 percent to rise up
and refuse to pay taxes that sustain the lazy and irresponsible, recipients
of public support and overindulged public employees who deliver it. Romney's
portrayal of the 47 percent matches, in words and tone, many European
leaders' portrayal of Greeks (and also Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Irish
and the peoples of whatever other country happens to be in an economic rut.)
Within European nations, the Romneyesque perspective is dividing and and
embittering citizens, particularly in the UK. The political philosophy
behind the idea of a welfare state, which held that a capitalist system
unable to provide decent, well-paying jobs to a significant portion of its
people should use taxes to provide them with life's basics, is losing
currency.
The welfare consensus was initially adopted because capitalists were trying
to stave off threats of socialist alternatives: providing for the poor, they
reasoned, would prevent citizens from sympathizing with Marxists,
Communists, and other left-leaning groups. The consensus also grew out of
shared mass experiences of capitalism's 1930s Great Depression and mass
empathy with its victims, as well as Cold War-driven concerns that without a
welfare state, the Soviet alternative would be all the more appealing.
Finally, support for a welfare state reflected the wealth and incomes
available to capitalists to support welfare states as means to maintain
their socially dominant positions.
Over the last half-century, socialism and other anti-capitalist threats have
been greatly weakened or compromised politically. Memories of the Great
Depression have faded. Capitalists started to shift the burden of taxation
off of businesses and the rich onto middle and lower income groups,
undermining middle-class support for tax-based welfare systems.
At the same time, the private sector relocated production and distribution
from capitalism's old centers (western Europe, north America, and Japan) to
new hubs in China, India, Brazil, and other developing economies. As wages
and salaries stagnated in the old centers, workers there borrowed more money
and grew to resent their enhanced tax burdens.
The politicians whose role was largely to defend capitalism fumbled their
way to austerity as the solution - an austerity justified by Romneyesque
sociology.
As capitalists refocused investments on their new centers, their rising
profits bought the political clout to win ever-lower taxes in the old. A
race to the bottom began. And with tax revenues under attack, politicians
everywhere responded with increased government borrowing. Debt and its
manipulations - finance - thus became a major growth industry everywhere.
The explosion of debt postponed basic solutions to the problems accumulated
by capitalism's evolution over recent decades. Despite stagnant wages,
consumption grew and sustained demand because rising profits were recycled
into loans to individuals, businesses and governments. This cycle imploded
in 2008, when the global economy crashed and required trillions of dollars
in public money to survive.
It was then that capitalism's postponed problems became urgently clear.
Capitalist economies must continue their highly profitable relocation from
old to new centers. They must deal with middle- and lower-income citizens in
those old centers who can no longer borrow to postpone their declining
economic and social conditions. They must somehow prevent those citizens
from identifying capitalism as the problem and then moving politically to
stop or reverse enterprises' relocation.
The politicians whose role was largely to defend this capitalist system then
fumbled their way to austerity as the solution - an austerity justified by
Romneyesque sociology.
Austerity policies pay the economic and social costs of global capitalism's
relocation, its 2008 crash, and subsequent bailouts by raising mass-based
taxes or reducing public services and employment or all of them. The
philosophy of Romney's "47 percent" rationalizes austerity by defending the
brave, new, righteous refusal of hard-working majorities to sustain
minorities drunk on entitlements they don't deserve.
Unsurprisingly, capitalism seeks allies among better-off, largely
private-sector workers, implicitly (and falsely) promising to protect them
from what austerities already do to public employees and welfare recipients.
Against this version of divide-and-conquer politics, a new left is rising.
Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, and Bernie Sanders' presidential drive
in the US: all are among new initiatives that begin to question and
challenge capitalism in its old centers. These protagonists are gearing up
for what will likely be a conflict central to the 21st century.
Visit Professor Wolff's social movement project, democracyatwork.info.
. ology
What do Angela Merkel and Mitt Romney have in common?
Related Terms :
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. English
by Richard Wolff.Published on July 22, 2015
This article originally appeared at AlJazeera America
In May 2012, when Mitt Romney was campaigning for president, he made a
statement that summed up his economic views - and came to define his run for
office:
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no
matter what," he said. These people "are dependent upon government, who
believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a
responsibility to care for them . I'll never convince them they should take
personal responsibility and care for their lives."
Germany's current leaders - and most of Europe's, as well - seem to fully
agree with this philosophy. They treat Greece exactly as though the country
fit Romney's description of that lazy, greedy 47 percent of Americans. And
Greece's experience prefigures what looms elsewhere: like Romney, many
European leaders appeal to their publics to embrace that perspective, often
effectively. This involves leading the hard-working 53 percent to rise up
and refuse to pay taxes that sustain the lazy and irresponsible, recipients
of public support and overindulged public employees who deliver it. Romney's
portrayal of the 47 percent matches, in words and tone, many European
leaders' portrayal of Greeks (and also Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Irish
and the peoples of whatever other country happens to be in an economic rut.)
Within European nations, the Romneyesque perspective is dividing and and
embittering citizens, particularly in the UK. The political philosophy
behind the idea of a welfare state, which held that a capitalist system
unable to provide decent, well-paying jobs to a significant portion of its
people should use taxes to provide them with life's basics, is losing
currency.
The welfare consensus was initially adopted because capitalists were trying
to stave off threats of socialist alternatives: providing for the poor, they
reasoned, would prevent citizens from sympathizing with Marxists,
Communists, and other left-leaning groups. The consensus also grew out of
shared mass experiences of capitalism's 1930s Great Depression and mass
empathy with its victims, as well as Cold War-driven concerns that without a
welfare state, the Soviet alternative would be all the more appealing.
Finally, support for a welfare state reflected the wealth and incomes
available to capitalists to support welfare states as means to maintain
their socially dominant positions.
Over the last half-century, socialism and other anti-capitalist threats have
been greatly weakened or compromised politically. Memories of the Great
Depression have faded. Capitalists started to shift the burden of taxation
off of businesses and the rich onto middle and lower income groups,
undermining middle-class support for tax-based welfare systems.
At the same time, the private sector relocated production and distribution
from capitalism's old centers (western Europe, north America, and Japan) to
new hubs in China, India, Brazil, and other developing economies. As wages
and salaries stagnated in the old centers, workers there borrowed more money
and grew to resent their enhanced tax burdens.
The politicians whose role was largely to defend capitalism fumbled their
way to austerity as the solution - an austerity justified by Romneyesque
sociology.
As capitalists refocused investments on their new centers, their rising
profits bought the political clout to win ever-lower taxes in the old. A
race to the bottom began. And with tax revenues under attack, politicians
everywhere responded with increased government borrowing. Debt and its
manipulations - finance - thus became a major growth industry everywhere.
The explosion of debt postponed basic solutions to the problems accumulated
by capitalism's evolution over recent decades. Despite stagnant wages,
consumption grew and sustained demand because rising profits were recycled
into loans to individuals, businesses and governments. This cycle imploded
in 2008, when the global economy crashed and required trillions of dollars
in public money to survive.
It was then that capitalism's postponed problems became urgently clear.
Capitalist economies must continue their highly profitable relocation from
old to new centers. They must deal with middle- and lower-income citizens in
those old centers who can no longer borrow to postpone their declining
economic and social conditions. They must somehow prevent those citizens
from identifying capitalism as the problem and then moving politically to
stop or reverse enterprises' relocation.
The politicians whose role was largely to defend this capitalist system then
fumbled their way to austerity as the solution - an austerity justified by
Romneyesque sociology.
Austerity policies pay the economic and social costs of global capitalism's
relocation, its 2008 crash, and subsequent bailouts by raising mass-based
taxes or reducing public services and employment or all of them. The
philosophy of Romney's "47 percent" rationalizes austerity by defending the
brave, new, righteous refusal of hard-working majorities to sustain
minorities drunk on entitlements they don't deserve.
Unsurprisingly, capitalism seeks allies among better-off, largely
private-sector workers, implicitly (and falsely) promising to protect them
from what austerities already do to public employees and welfare recipients.
Against this version of divide-and-conquer politics, a new left is rising.
Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, and Bernie Sanders' presidential drive
in the US: all are among new initiatives that begin to question and
challenge capitalism in its old centers. These protagonists are gearing up
for what will likely be a conflict central to the 21st century.
Visit Professor Wolff's social movement project, democracyatwork.info.
