MATERIALISM AND CONSUMER CULTURE

This article is part of a 13-question interview about American society that Jaime Ortega, president of "The Daily Journalist" conducted with me by submitting questions in writing. The first three essays appear below and the rest will follow in the coming days. 

7) Jaime Ortega: Has the US become such a materialist society that even the people without qualifications think of the American Dream as a quick stage of success without working hard to achieve its goal? Is materialism and laziness in America intertwined, in other words, living the credit life without earning hard cash? 

JVK: Some scholars believe that the US is the most materialistic society in history. The Papacy under the current and previous pope has criticized the US for its devotion to material possessions and its general orientation toward wealth accumulation and hedonistic lifestyle. Despite public opinion polls indicating a large percentage of Americans believing God, there is an apparent absence toward spiritual matters in a society where wealth is the measure of all things and where collectivism and collectivist endeavors are absent from the social fabric.  

 Everything from personal happiness to religious and secular holidays is measured in terms of materialism as much as is the American Dream. There is even an underlying assumption that there is a direct correlation between wealth and intelligence, wealth and character, wealth and success, wealth and power, wealth and patriotism. Regardless of whether wealth was acquired through creative endeavors and diligence, through inheritance or illegal activities, popular culture and the media project the image that the wealth of an individual is somehow a manifestation of positive innate traits. While many positive attributes can be assigned to the wealthy, a commitment to social justice is not one of them, although some try to include this as well by arguing philanthropy by the rich is indicative they are committed to social justice. Never mind the manner by which wealth was acquired and maintained in the first, place as long as some of it makes its way back to the “riffraff of society” on whom the wealthy take pity.  

Given these assumptions about the correlation between wealth and intelligence and all other positive character traits, it is easy to understand why “American Exceptionalism” would take hold in the political culture. After all, America has been the world’s wealthiest nation in absolute terms since the Second World War, thus it must be the country with the most intelligent, judicious, diligent, ethical, and patriotic people. This implication is that traditional collectivist societies in non-Western areas must be less diligent and less ambitious as far removed from the American Protestant work ethic as possible, therefore they pay the price of lower living standards than the US. 

The assumption that the Protestant work ethic made America great and it is a reflection of its economic superiority also assumes intellectual and moral superiority and a connection to “happiness”. If the US is losing its global preeminence and the American Dream is elusive for more and more people, there must be something wrong with the generation ignoring the Protest work ethic as the key to success. Is there a crisis in the Protestant work ethic in 21^st century and the values on which America laid the foundations for world economic status in the 19^th century or is there a structural problem in the political economy and society? Conservatives who believe that the social welfare state has diluted traditional values to the detriment of productivity conclude that the fault does not rest with capitalism developing irresolvable contradictions under globalization and neoliberal policies, but cynical less diligent and less ambitious people refusing to adhere to the Protestant work ethic.

Never mind that the US economy is structurally driven by consumer demand on which corporate quarterly reports depend for stock performance. Whereas the consumer demand as a percent of GDP was just below 62% in the 1960s, it rose to 70% in the first decade of the 21^st century; Interestingly, for the corresponding decades in Canada the percentages were 56 and 58 respectively, representing a drop of 2% rather an increase of 10% as in the US. The American marketing machine constantly pushes people toward consumerism while the entire culture is based on it. If shoppers stop worshipping at the mall, the US economy will lapse into recession. On the surface of it and in the short-term this may seem just great for quarterly corporate profits. However, longer term it poses a serious problem for a consumption-oriented society with a large service sector that is parasitic – recycling existing money through Wall Street and main street consulting and others that offer nothing to raise productivity.

In comparison with defense/domestic security allocations, the US has very low levels of investment in infrastructure, especially mass transportation, schools, public parks, and facilities for pre-school, the elderly and mentally ill – human security-based economy that is also labor-intensive instead of just capital intensive. The focus is on consumption, and increasingly on high-tech workforce that makes society less labor-intensive without generating new productivity fields for good-paying fulltime jobs. In other words, the nature of the high-tech capitalist economy is creating its own contradictions and seeds of its self-destruction because the neoliberal ideology encourages individual capitalists to pursue their individual interest that invariably run up against obstacles of the capitalism as a system with inherent distortions owing to inter-sector competition collective overproduction, etc.

America’s dominant culture and value system rest on the “who wants to be a millionaire” mindset that many people associate with American democracy. Does consumer democracy and millionaire hero-worship by the media and popular culture accounts for the attitudes of the “millennial generation”, or is there more to it than this? There are public opinion polls indicating the post-1990s generation is indeed much more materialistic and less interested in hard work than their parents growing up during the Vietnam War. But who exactly influenced the values of the ‘millennial generation’, if not their parents and society as a whole becoming more materialistic during the Vietnam era, despite the civil rights, women’s and anti-war and anti-materialism movements – all of which were eventually set aside for the American Dream. 

Is the value system based on worship of material objects and Hollywood-style entertainment lifestyle the root cause of indoctrinating the “millennial generation”, or have their Vietnam War era parents and teachers spoiled the new generation because the previous generation was really not much different below the surface of civil rights and environmentalism as a cause to fill the void that materialism cannot fill? Consumption values are at the core of contemporary American culture because the mass media, businesses and politicians equate such values with freedom and democracy. Citizen identity with the nation-state during the age of romanticism in the era of literary figure Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 1840s was replaced with consumption values prevailing during the Age of Materialism in the late 19th century. 

The idealism imbedded in American nationalism that can be seen by the time of Emerson and Alexis de Tocqueville had been replaced with the age of advertising focused on propagating “wants and needs” of the growing middle class during the era that Mark Twain called Gilded Age (last three decades of the 19^th century). The legacy of the Gilded Age remains deeply imbedded in American culture because it serves the privileged interests of the socioeconomic elites. Some scholars argue that the US as a pluralistic heterogeneous society without a common majority religion or a homogeneous ethnic group shares the common goal of work to acquire wealth, which is the reason most immigrants came here.  

Historically, in all societies the life of leisure and materialism has always been associated with the upper classes. Certainly the aristocracy of ancient Athens and Rome enjoyed the material fruits of life while their slaves worked. In the 19^th century China and Russia, peasants were no more immersed in materialism and leisure any more than American slaves, small farmers and workers. Even the Catholic Church claiming to represent all things spiritual was immersed in the life of materialism and leisure linked with the upper clergy that had much more in common with the European nobility than the devoutly religious serfs and peasants. In other words, materialism and leisure has always been part of the lifestyle of the secular and spiritual elites, while the masses merely aspire to such things but never achieve them.

A product of the Age of Reason and the birth of bourgeois liberal democracy, the US democratized the material lifestyle, promising it was theoretically possible for anyone to have access to it, minus Native Americans and black slaves. The American Dream promises the “potential” of the lifestyle and possessions of the elites provided the masses adhere to the Protestant work ethic of hard work and discipline that the elites presumably follow. The assumption is that everyone wants to acquire this dream of materialism that includes:  a) owning a home, b) car, c) college for the kids, d) a private retirement fund and a savings account, e) health care, and f) family vacations. If you do not have these six things, you too are in the shrinking “debtor middle class” according to the definition of the US government and mainstream institutions. But even if you have all six of the above, it is simply not enough because you are not an internet billionaire. 

Why not have a bigger and better house and car; why not more money and more luxurious vacations; why not more of everything because more means you are more intelligent, ambitious, superior to the wretched masses dying a slow horrible death while you feel like you will live forever because you possess more than most? If the rich and famous have more of everything, why can’t the millennial generation join in? If liquidity shortage is the problem, just charge the American Dream and worry about paying it off later. These prevailing attitudes existed in American society but were largely among the middle class until the Reagan administration propagated the myth that in the country closely adheres to neoliberal policies than everyone can have what the rich people have. Through the trickle-down economics process of the rich having more and their wealth will trickle down to the cleaning lady and the dishwater at the local restaurant will mean everyone can enjoy the American Dream. 

Materialism skyrocketed in the late 1980s early 1990s under the Reagan-Bush conservative presidencies. This continued under Democrat President Clinton during the internet and cell phone revolution in the last decade of the 20^th century.  According to a recent public opinion polls, about two-thirds of young people 25 years of age and under expressed desire to be very wealthy, but 39% of them admitted they did not want to work hard to achieve wealth. These statistics represent a rise in materialism and desire for leisure in comparison with similar surveys conducted when Jimmy Carter was president. How do people then acquire the American Dream without much effort? They simply charge it with the blessing of the banks and companies offering credit cards to shop. Who bails out these corporate giants when they have a liquidity crisis because of bad loans? The taxpayers of course to the detriment of lower living standards for future generations that must consume less and produce more! 

Coming to office amid the deep recession erupting in 2008, the Obama administration expressed concern that the American Dream is fading because the credit middle class is weakening, a point many Democrats and even some Republicans concede. Because the “middle class dream” (synonymous with the American Dream) is fading fast, the Obama administration had a task force operating on the assumption that everyone wants the American Dream, but cannot have it because of the low wage rates and high cost of living. 

Effective demand is limited by the earning power of workers and the middle class in the post-credit crisis of 2008 has experienced sharply reduced personal wealth (drop in real estate values, private pensions, and stock portfolios). The illusory middle class "wealth effect" will remain low and accumulated surplus capital high, thus keeping the world economy under limited growth prospects for a long time. Given existing conditions in the advanced capitalist countries, what impact will they have on the social order and specifically the “millennial generation” that expects a lot more than the neoliberal economy is able to deliver? The individual’s "real worth" is "creditworthiness" bundled as part of net worth completely unrelated to the humanity and compassion of that individual, devoid of that person’s creativity. This materialistic definition affords the illusion to a large percentage of people that they are part of capitalism's success when they are in fact victims of debt beneath the veil of credit. 

As proletarization of the middle class becomes more apparent, the current global crisis will evolve into a middle class crisis of alienation, stratification, and erratic class/status identity. A more acceptable solution for US government and mainstream institutions is: a) find another job to supplement existing income, b) work harder to secure higher wages, c) plan and invest better and pray for lcuk, d) return to school for more education or re-training; and e) wait for “lady luck” to ring your doorbell because having conformed to the Calvinist work ethic is just not enough! If indeed the assumptions of the US government (and the entire mainstream institutional structure) that “securing a middle class” is the key the American Dream, how do we explain US public opinion polls indicating that the “happiness” level (granted the obvious difficulty of quantifying it), has been under 50% and steadily declining since 1970, despite enjoying the world’s highest GDP? 

Is the current culture of heightened consumerism a reflection of the decline in spiritual orientation as people identify happiness with possessions? It is true that the entire world views the US as the Mecca of capitalism, materialism and hedonism. It is just as true that is the image the US projects of itself by its behavior in daily life, in its popular culture, books and magazines TV and motion pictures, country fairs to trade fairs, schools to sports, all placing materialism and hedonism above all else. Americans living in a modern secular society where science and technology promise to deliver all solutions to problems cannot possibly take religion as seriously as their European ancestors did during the Middle Ages when the Church was the last resort for human happiness. Nor is escaping to religion and spiritualism address fundamental social justice problems any more in America than any other country.

The value system is largely economically-determined in 21^st century America as it was in 15^th century Europe amid the plague. When German theologian and university professor Martin Luther was a teenager in the late 15^th century, society was surrounded by churches and monasteries. Like all others, young Luther worshipped for the salvation of his soul because eternal spiritual life mattered much more than temporary material life. Teenagers in contemporary America spend a good deal of their day worshipping via cell phones, laptops and electronic devices connecting them to a virtual material world. 

Corporations producing and marketing modern techno-devices promise society that they need nothing else in life to be complete and happy. These techno-devices will do everything from online banking and shopping to online virtual human contact. Whereas spiritual convictions and religious worship are free, worshipping at the mall costs money. Will there be a rebellion against the corporate and political hierarchy in the 21^st century as there was in the early 16^th century in Germany that Luther inspired against the hypocritical ecclesiastical hierarchy?

IMMIGRANTS, XENOPHOBIA AND RACISM in AMERICA

This article is part of a 13-question interview about American society that Jaime Ortega, president of "The Daily Journalist" conducted with me by submitting questions in writing. The first two essays appear below and the rest will follow in the coming days. 

5) Jaime Ortega: Illegal immigration has been an historic problem in American since the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty. Back in the 1950’s the American economy was booming and in great shape with an unrestrained border and illegal immigration did not seem to be much of an issue as today. What is sinking the economy more into a sinkhole, the US citizens who are exploiting the welfare state or illegal immigrants who don’t pay taxes but do work to help market production rise?  
 
JVK: Undocumented workers are not so much an issue about economics but rightwing populist and often racist politics.  Throughout history immigrant labor had very solid benefits to the US economy and society and informed critics know this to be the case. Nevertheless, politicians and the media present the immigrant issue as a problem in the economy, though after 9/11 they link it to terrorism. Some rightwing analysts link undocumented workers who are nothing more than economic refugees to security and by implication terrorism, although there is no empirical evidence of such linkage. The following excerpt is typical of how rightwing analysts are using terrorism to instill fear in politicians and the public when it comes to undocumented workers. 

“They (illegal aliens) also take away value by weakening the legal and national security environment. Even though they pose no direct security threat, the presence of millions of undocumented migrants distorts the law, distracts resources, and effectively creates a cover for terrorists and criminals. In other words, the real problem presented by illegal immigration is security, not the supposed threat to the economy.” (Tim Kane and K. A. Johnson, The Heritage Foundation). The linkage between terrorism and undocumented workers is as absurd as the one that undocumented workers are a destructive force in the economy; they sponge off the welfare system, pay no taxes, spread diseases, and commit crimes. Critics of immigration policy are driven by ideology, xenophobia and racism. Above all, they are hypocrites because they would never advance the same arguments in case of illegal immigrants is they came from northwest Europe. 

Immigration has political, social, racial/ethnic, and cultural dimensions and it has been around since the founding of the Republic. John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 to limit the rights of immigrants because the Federalists in power viewed immigrants as part of the popular base of Thomas Jefferson who supported the French Revolution at the time. Half a century later the “Know Nothing” movement revived the “ethnic purity” argument in a country that was predominantly Anglo-Saxon but clearly one of immigrants, with African slaves and American native population whose lands were colonized. Coinciding with the Spanish-American War (1998), once again the anti-immigration elements organized against Asians resulting in the limitation of Chinese immigrants. This too was a reaction to the depression of the 1890s and the search to find a scapegoat for structural problems in the US economy. 

Besides the government, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) vehemently opposed immigration on ethnic, racial and cultural basis. The AFL arguments notwithstanding about immigrants contaminating American “purity”, the status quo labor union wanted to preserve its monopoly in the field and opposed the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW founded 1905) that immigrants supported. The anarcho-syndicalist IWW trying to organize low-paid workers posed a threat to the pro-capitalist AFL whose labor base was the high-paid labor force made up of ‘natives’ (second and third generation immigrants) rather than recent immigrants. The opposition to immigrants, therefore, came not only from politically, religiously, ethnically “purist” groups but also from the largest organized labor group seeking to protect its monopoly in society. Opportunistic politicians took advantage of the conflict between the IWW advocating class struggle and AFL advocating class collaboration. Woodrow Wilson co-opted the AFL during WWI and Democrat politicians recognized the importance of having a segment of the labor movement on their side. 

Not just in the US, but in Europe and Australia, politicians have been hammering to secure votes from an increasingly skeptical public about the underlying causes of social and economic problems that they attribute to illegal immigrants that organized labor also opposes. Xenophobia and racism are not the exclusive domain of the ultra-right wing elements that make no secret of their views about non-white Protestant Anglo Saxons, but even of moderates who yield to populist rhetoric about undocumented workers as the root of all economic and social problems. 

In recent years, Mexicans are the targets of those raising the American flag against illegal immigration polluting the “purity” of American society. The ethno-centric views of those opposed to immigrants from Mexico and Latin America revolve around ethnicity, religion, and culture and have historical roots. The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty (1848) ended the war that the US had declared against Mexico depriving it of all its territory north of the Rio Grande River and California. The Mexican population estimated at 80,000 in California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona accepted US citizenship. However, land belonging to Mexican families transferred hands in the course of the war. The citizenship rights of Mexicans did not result in retention of their ancestral lands for the most part, causing friction also because this sent a signal they were second-class citizens as far as US government and courts were concerned, and treated accordingly in a society of high levels of racial/ethnic stratification before the Civil Rights movement. 

During the Great Depression, the Mexican community suffered “pogrom-style raids”, while the US government forced more than 500,000 people, 60% of them US citizens, back to Mexico. Stereotypical racist images of Hispanics in American popular culture as lazy, criminal-oriented, trouble-makers that cause chaos in communities reinforced the racist tendencies among xenophobes. This meant that Hispanics were invariably on the fringes of the institutional mainstream, excluded from jury-duty in Texas before 1954 (Supreme Court case: Hernandez vs. Texas) and suffering the indignities such as store signs that read” “No dogs no Mexicans”. 

During the expansionary cycle of the US economy in the 1950s and 1960s, the issue of immigration in general did not receive center stage in political debates, except at the cultural level where stereotypical images remained in the dominant culture about non-white minorities. The Civil Rights movement addressed some of these issues, but this affected mostly the middle class minorities as much in the Hispanic as in the black community. Because there was demand for workers to fill positions in the primary and secondary sectors of production, the political class and media did not emphasize immigration to the degree in the 1960s and 1970s as they did after Reagan came to the White House and the ideological and political climate moved sharply to the right. The undocumented workers issue remained at the core of US politics, especially under Reagan who fought against Civil Rights and workers’ rights. An enthusiastic supporter of agri-business in California where Hispanics were trying to earn a living wage with the help of Cesar Chavez, Reagan sent the signal to society that mainstream white Protestant America must be maintained against any encroachments from outsiders at a time that the US was engaged in counter-insurgency operations in El Salvador and Nicaragua.  

During the second Clinton administration, the government recognized the legitimate rights of Mexicans, but the legacy of ethnocentrism and the mindset of Manifest Destiny that prevailed in the 1840s have assumed new forms in the early 21^st century. This is evident not just by the manner that Republican presidential candidate Trump described Mexicans, but actually the entire society according to public opinion polls. While 50% women claimed they felt discriminated and 52% of blacks, the percentage for Hispanics are at 61% with 81% claiming to have suffered some form of discrimination. 

Attitudes of the public changed regarding immigration from the time the US passed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 when 1% deemed this the most important issue to 2014 when about one-third of Americans saw immigration as a threat to the American way of life and values; whatever this means, considering the heterogeneous nature of American society and the rightwing propaganda of linking non-white immigration with “domestic security”. 

Despite the massive rightwing propaganda the media spews daily and politicians reinforce, the majority of the people believe immigrants strengthen the economy and society. However, from 2000 to 2015, the convergence of three developments changed attitudes toward immigration among an increasingly skeptical public that wants to blame some tangible entity for problems facing the country.  a) the war on terror that provided a political impetus to the xenophobes and rightwing elements; b) the deep recession of 2008; and c) the election of a black president that many white conservatives associate with diluting “American purity”. 

It is not at all surprising considering that the media and politicians are constantly pointing to undocumented workers as America’s problem, as though if immigrants disappeared America would magically reclaim its glory of the 1950s. Arizona passed legislation forcing out undocumented workers and authorizing police to check the citizenship of people they suspect are illegal aliens. Politicians and other fear-mongers have been talking about erecting a wall to keep out Hispanics and terrorists along the US-Mexico border of roughly 1100 kilometers at the cost of billions to the taxpayers. This association of linking Mexico-US border security with terrorists is unmitigated fear mongering projected on to the public that has difficulty differentiating what is the role of the immigrant because of the way the rightwing media bundles the two completely separate issues.

Republican presidential candidate Trump opportunistically used the xenophobia issue to bring popular support to his campaign. “The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” The Trump xenophobic rhetoric actually achieved his political goal because it reflects two-thirds of the sentiment among Republicans and one-third among Independents and Democrats, according to the latest public opinion poll on immigration. A poll taken in 2011when the recession was still a reality revealed that the majority of Americans opposed not just immigrants but their children from attending public school and receiving any type of assistance to attend college.

Considering that the demographics of American society are changing and that Hispanics will be the largest minority group by the middle of the 21^st century, there seems to be a divergence between this reality on the one hand, and the anachronistic racist attitudes of politicians and the media on the other. The question is why the political and socioeconomic elites stress this issue when they know very well that the country’s economic and political future is changing very rapidly owing in part to demographics. Whereas in 1960, Hispanics accounted for 3.5% of the US population and whites for 85%,it is estimated that in 2050 whites will account for 47% and Hispanics for 29%. Hispanics will have the potential to determine national elections, assuming the US will remain a representative democracy.

Fear of losing their privileged status and possibly political power has driven a segment of the majority voters toward xenophobia amid the war on terror. Stereotypical images of immigrants persist because the dominant white Protestant Anglo-Saxon culture perpetuates them in order to preserve the political economy and social structure that will be changing more rapidly in the 21^st century. This is a classic case of old white northwest European immigrants opposing the new immigrants of color from Latin America, Asia and Africa. This is an issue of legitimacy that whites give themselves but exclude others as though an open pluralistic society is a private country club.

Right wing elements in politics, the media, and think tanks like Heritage Foundation use immigration as a distraction from the real cause of the growing socioeconomic inequality that has to do with neoliberal policies and military-solution-oriented foreign policy both the Democrats and Republicans support. Another dimension is that American culture is immersed in a long history of racism and xenophobia and the white majority fears that society is becoming more multicultural than ever. Instead of seeing cultural diffusion as a positive development enriching society in every respect, there are those who cling on to illusions of Anglo-Saxon Protestant “purity”, once an illusion of the Ku Klux Klan, now prevalent among otherwise” respectable” rightwing elements raising the American flag high against foreigners and terrorists.

This issue is not going away any time soon for two reasons. First, the US will continue drifting down the road of militarism regardless of costs to the economy in order to maintain its global leverage. Militarism will translate into greater xenophobia and right wing domestic attitudes if not hostile policies toward new immigrants. The second reason this will remain an issue in the political arena is because the next recession will revive calls to close the borders. This is what has taken place throughout American history from the 19^th century to the present and it will continue as it does in Europe and Australia.

6) Jaime Ortega: A lot Americans complain about the lack of opportunities to succeed, but is this really true? Many immigrants that come from third world countries start in low income areas and eventually climb the pyramid and end up living in better neighborhoods and have better education. Are Americans really taking advantage of the opportunities, or are they really insufficient opportunities to grow in the US free market?

JVK: America has always been described as “the Land of Opportunity”, but does it live up to its reputation on a sustained basis?  There are certainly opportunities during the expansionary cycles in the economy, but even those appear to have limitations in the last forty years. From the end of the Vietnam War until the present diminished opportunities exist because the US economy has shifted from manufacturing to service-oriented, accelerating with advent of China as the world’s manufacturing center and the relocation of company operations in all fields to India, Brazil, Ireland, and other parts of the world. 

Capitalism has always been an international system with capital going it will realize the highest returns rather than maintaining loyalty to a nation-state. The international nature of capital with the opening of China’s economy as well as the downfall of the Soviet bloc simply created more investment markets while driving wages lower for the US middle class and blue collar workers. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that the US economy lost 20 million jobs by the end of 2009 as a result of the recession of 2008, while more than 170,000 small businesses closed in the first two years of the recession. 

There is no shortage of part time and low-wage jobs, while the full time and well-paying jobs are few. The creation of “contract workers” is one phenomenon of the new globalized economy operating under neoliberal policies. This is as much a reality in the US as it is in many countries around the world because multinational corporations figured a way around permanent full time work that entails greater profits. The new economy based on “contract workers” (rent-a-worker just like you rent a car) keeps employer production costs low, while the employee lacks jobs security, rights otherwise accorded to full time workers, and often has no benefits such as health care. In essence, this means that companies shift the burden of health care costs to the employee and the state subsidizing the employee. In the 1980s, there were just 05% of contract workers, while in 2014 the number had risen to 2.3%. Even more significant, this is a trend that will grow, considering more employers are using this option along with part-time workers.

Instead of examining the new labor conditions in the marketplace and new labor-management relations, politicians, the media, and rightwing consultants blame workers for failing to retrain and take advantage of the changing market conditions. There are studies indicating that immigrants will accept jobs that “natives” whether in the US, Europe, Australia or Canada will not take. Studies also show that immigrants tend to do better with upward mobility despite structural obstacles than “natives” for a combination of reasons ranging from the psychology of an immigrant to willingness to accept harder jobs and more than one.

The upward mobility of immigrants phenomenon doing better than “natives” pertains more to the second generation immigrants and not so much to first generation that encounter problems integrating fully into society. One explanation for the immigrants tending to grab at any opportunity and crave upward mobility is their fear of finding ahead of them what they left behind in the old country. The spirit of competition is much higher because they are outsiders whose psychology is very different than that of the native population. In fact, the American Dream has a much greater appeal to the immigrant worker than it does to the college student who has doubts about the institutional system delivering what politicians and the media advertise. 

While the immigrant aims toward integration into the institutional mainstream, a segment of the native population regards it with suspicion. All immigrants, including black immigrants who know the history of racism in America, are actually driven by the same sense of excelling through conformity whereas the same people would not do as much in their own countries. However, as the chart below indicates, recent and long-term immigrants lag far behind the native population in every respect from housing ownership to income. The same holds true for Hispanics, who actually lag even more than the overall US immigrant population according to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies.   

In comparison with the socioeconomic conditions of immigrants, the economic and social situation of much of the African-American population is bad, and in many respects deteriorated since 1980, especially with regard to black male youth employment opportunities. Conservative and liberal analysts alike argue that the fault does not necessarily rest with a system in which immigrants seem to be doing fairly well, but with the African-Americans. After all, there is a black middle class and the US elected a black president twice. Therefore, there is no discriminatory institutional structure but individual responsibility for failure to succeed. There are consultants and inspirational gurus trying to tell people that a positive state of mind is all it takes to become successful. These people stress the values of individualism and never raise the issue of structures as catalytic in the life of the individual who must persevere over any obstacle society presents within legal means. 

The US government, businesses and educational institutions have moved toward a broader definition of meritocracy since the Civil Rights movements by introducing Affirmative Action in education and hiring practices to even the playing field between the majority and minority populations. Kennedy signed an executive order in 1961 ordering that government “not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin" and "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." Conservatives, especially during the Reagan presidency, argued that affirmative action was a form of quotas for minorities, disregarding the long history of quotas for white males only in an institutional structure favoring white males to the exclusion of all others.

Affirmative Action simply extended the 18^th century meritocracy ideal to women and minorities, but within these groups impacting largely the middle class and not the poor. After all, the concept of meritocracy was a bourgeois ideal and created for the middle class trying to insert itself into the political and business mainstream commensurate with its contributions to society, as far as 18^th century Enlightenment thinkers were concerned. Kennedy and those favoring affirmative action simply extended the old bourgeois concept pertaining to white males only to the rest of the middle class population to reflect the realities of a diverse society that minority populations enriched with their contributions. 

Diversity in an open society seems logical, except when it threatens the white male majority. How does one measure merit except in standardized tests and grades in school? The white meritocracy argument used against blacks and Hispanics has run into contradictions when it comes to Asians scoring much higher than whites in standardized tests and especially in math and science. Although American society is becoming more diverse demographically, the right wing politicians, think tanks, media have used the courts and the Supreme Court to fight against what they label “reverse discrimination”. This is because they see with great clarity the majority white population losing ground largely because of demographic changes and the only way to preserve privileges accorded on racial/.ethnic grounds is to fight in the courts where white male judges are skeptical about affirmative action trying to correct white “sins of the past”. 

Even with the progress that women and minorities have made under affirmative action, the reality is that class transcends gender, race and ethnicity. This is the reason for the concessions to the middle class Hispanics, women, blacks, and other minorities. The American economy reached its peak in the second half of the 1940s when the economies of the entire world were in shambles. While there was growth in the 1950s and upward socioeconomic mobility continued until the end of the Vietnam War, opportunities became fewer and the long decline set in as a permanent feature. In 2015, the IMF declared that China is the world’s largest economy if measured in PPP terms, and likely to continue rising to overtake the US at some point later in the century. China’s economic rise is as certain as the decline of the US. This limits opportunities for the majority of Americans. The result will be that politicians will continue to distract the public by blaming the individual and minority groups, terrorism and foreign enemies rather than the domestic political economy as the root cause of the problem.

AMERICAN WORKERS AND THE WELFARE STATE

This article is part of a 13-question interview about American society that Jaime Ortega, president of "The Daily Journalist" conducted with me by submitting questions in writing. The first two appear below and the rest will follow in the coming days.  The first part about Youth and its role in society is published below.

3) Jaime Ortega: Many companies nationwide complain to the government that many American workers (not all) do not perform as efficiently as other foreign workers and illegal immigrants who also work for these same companies.  For example, Alabama recently passed a law where illegal immigrants needed work permits. Do Americans companies need immigrants? And is the American labor become lazier compared to illegal immigrants?  It looks like in most universities all the Bachelors of Science are taken by mostly foreign students and few Americans! Will that have a long effect repercussion on the US?

JVK: Are American workers “inefficient” (producing more at a lower cost to their counterparts around the world) or are they the cause for the lack of “competitiveness”? Are US wages too high and productivity too low, and is efficiency measured only in terms of maximum profits to the exclusion of all other factors? Are workers the reason that US companies relocating to Mexico, Vietnam, China, Brazil and other countries as part of the de-industrialization process in the last forty years? 

The argument that workers are fault for the ills of the US economy started during the first Industrial Revolution in England more than two centuries ago. During the Gilded Age of the late 19^th century, the argument of worker inefficiency was used to prevent labor organizers and keep wages low and government away from regulating hours, safety and child labor. Clearly, a child, a woman and a minority male was worked more efficiently because they received considerably less than their white male counterpart during the period when trusts and cartels enjoyed unquestioned influence over all levels of government and the courts.

The New Deal changed labor-management relations, rationalizing the process within the capitalist system. However, as the US became more hawkish during the Cold War, domestic policy reflected a rightwing turn as well. The anti-union political momentum has its origins in the Truman administration that reversed the pro-labor policies of FDR and used the Cold War as a pretext to impose labor conformity to domestic policies. Because the economy was in an expansionary mode during the early Cold War and there were opportunities for the children of workers to secure an education and move into the middle class, conformity was inevitable as the American Dream was the reward.  

De-radicalized pro-business trade unions went along with the government on foreign affairs and renounced the class struggle, focused only on “bread and butter” issues as part of the Democrat Party. Anti-trade union policies of the Republican Party that identified unions as appendages of the Democratic Party are part of the reason for the question of inefficiency. Another issue is related to the justification of globalization that transfers high-paying jobs to low-cost labor markets, thus driving wages lower in the US. Finally, there is the issue of preventing unionization where it does not exist, minimizing the influence of the already weak and ineffective unions, and simply busting unions as was the case during the Reagan administration. No matter what the argument, the assumption always revolves around the theme of maintaining capital’s monopoly influence in policy and maximizing corporate profits no matter the cost to society. This is no different than what took place during the Gilded Age.

According to the pro-business Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Germany has the world’s most productive labor force, while the US ranks third. Neither Germany nor the US have low wages compared with China and Vietnam, but they enjoy top world rankings from a pro-business international organization. Why then do politicians, the media, and well-paid pro-business consultants and academics-for-hire to businesses insist the US labor force is the problem to productivity?

On 31 July 2015, the US Federal Reserve released the second quarter labor report costs revealing that these were the lowest in 33 years. Despite massive rises in executive compensation and record corporate profits, politicians and media insist that wages are the problem in the economy. Where exactly is the empirical evidence to suggest that the American labor force on the whole, whether in the public or private sector, whether in the office or in the factory, whether in the commercial farm or the construction site is the cause for productivity inefficiency? If the business model is flawed, if management compensation exorbitant, if the child labor factory in Bangladesh makes the exact same garment five times cheaper under unhealthy and hazardous conditions, why is it the fault of the American worker and not the factory owner trying to squeeze out higher profits by exploiting children in the Third World?

The only reason that the US government, businesses, media and the IMF even raise the issue of worker inefficiency is to demand lower wages throughout the world, to crush labor unions, and to prevent new ones from emerging. If a 12-year girl in Bangladesh is making a few dollars a week, but her adult American counterpart is making $12 dollars an hour, is the conclusion that the American worker is “inefficient” or that the corporate employer is exploiting child labor in countries desperate for capital investment and no laws for children, safety, health and the environment?

It is ironic that politicians, journalist and economists against raising the minimum wage are either millionaires or very wealthy who would never concede giving one dollar more of their parasitically-earned income to reduce the public debt. If they honestly believe workers are not the people creating wealth, but instead they are the obstacles to efficiency, then why not abolish all labor laws, all labor-management regulations, outlaw trade unions and end workers’ rights, and let the employer decide what the worker is “worth”. If these measured are followed to concentrate capital even more than it is today in the hands of the wealthiest one percent, the question arises about what kind of social structure and political system would evolve in America where the middle class is presumably its backbone.

Some sectors of the US economy including construction, agriculture, and manufacturing, employ foreign laborers, some of which are undocumented. This is also the case with domestic workers in the hotel and restaurant business where wages are low. Employers prefer to employ such workers because they are diligent, but also because they earn much lower wages than documented workers. For many decades employers have made the argument that employing Hispanic and other non-US-born workers is more efficient for them and they pass on the savings to the consumer. This is regardless of whether it is a commercial farm or a construction company. The trade unionists then turn against the undocumented workers, arguing the government is not cracking down on these people taking jobs away from American citizens. This is an old story of old immigrant workers making higher wages turning against the new ones earning much less. The media, government and businesses then argue that high paid workers losing their jobs simply do not have the “right skills” for the evolving job market, so it is their fault. If they just secure more education/training, they too could experience upward social mobility.

The downward social mobility in America has been taking place in the last three decades and it is continuing.  This has been a subject of many books and articles as well as political debates, with some liberal suggesting adjustments to the fiscal system and wage scales and conservatives arguing in favor of allowing the market to decide and individuals going back for more education to secure a good job. One area where the young have historically looked for upward mobility is the college degree, although studies indicate the political economy and social stratification is such that the average person will change several careers in a lifetime. Moreover, the demands of the market are such that whereas in the 1950s a high school diploma was sufficient to secure a job, in 2015 a Ph.D. is no guarantee the candidate will work in her/his field and make more money than a truck driver.

America’s educational system designed to provide opportunities for self-enlightenment and marketable skills in the workforce achieved its goal from the end of WWII until the end of the Vietnam War. When social welfare began to dwindle as resources shifted to defense and corporate welfare during the 1980s, radio personality Garrison Keillor made famous jokes about the unemployable English major. This was an indication that a college degree in the humanities was hardly sufficient to guarantee a job in the field of academic training. The reality in the 1980s was that any field outside of the hard sciences and business was difficult to secure a job, even with a Ph.D. A decade later, it became difficult to secure a job in fields once thought as safe, including areas in the hard sciences and law. Individuals with college degrees had to secure more and different training for employment. By the time the recession of 2008 hit, it was difficult to find a job in any field even for graduates of prominent universities.

Besides inability to find employment in the field of their educational training, college graduates had a massive debt from loans because costs had skyrocketed as the business model of education meant shifting the burden from the public sector to the student. High college costs excluded children of workers and lower middle class that could only afford local colleges, if at all, or going into the armed forces. Universities responded by introducing distance learning and e-colleges, as well as eliminating standardized exams ACT-SAT, both schemes to secure tuition income as competition increased. In the last three decades, universities have been evolving toward a business model where the administration behaves like corporate management and the faculty like workers, and students are consumers. This is reflected in salaries where there are huge gaps between the millionaire college presidents and professors, with exceptions in business schools.  

It is not only that the corporate model of college has become very expensive and leaves out those who cannot afford it, it is also the case that an undergraduate degree is now like a high school diploma in the 1960s in terms of securing employment in a very competitive service-oriented economy geared increasingly to business and high tech positions amid an evolving proletarianization social process that provides people with titles such as “assistant manager” at a fast-food restaurant or an insurance office. College students know that they are no different than consumers because this is how universities treat them, their degree is no guarantee of upward socioeconomic mobility, and society does not value education but wealth that can be acquired by any means necessary, including unscrupulous or illegal methods. In short, the merit-based ideal of the 18^th century Age of Reason no longer applies in the new Gilded Age of the 21^st century.

The apologists of the corporate model of higher education argue that the problem rests with students who are not interested in math and science but opt for the humanities and social sciences where there is no gainful employment. They point to foreign students who gravitate toward those fields and become successful. This is indeed the case with foreign students, at least looking at this issue on its surface. Beneath this appearance are the following hard facts.

First, High School students in Europe, Russia and Asia have a much better training in math and science than their US counterparts because American secondary education has been deteriorating for decades. Therefore, when foreign students come to the US it is easy for them to take courses in math and science because of their educational training.  Second, foreign students do not have language expertise of their American-born counterparts, so they find it easier to focus on math and science. Third, a foreign student could have easily stayed in her/his own country to study humanities and social sciences, as they do, instead of coming here. The reason foreign students come to the US is primarily for the hard sciences. If they wanted to study poetry, they could have done so in their own country.

One would be surprised to discover that not just the US, but the rest of the advanced capitalist countries have a problem with unemployable college graduates, especially Europe and in fields of social sciences and humanities just like the US. Therefore, the problem is not that the US college student is so much different than her/his counterpart in the much of rest of the world, but that capitalism has a crisis of overproduction in college graduates as much as it does in every other commodity. The college student here and world-wide is nothing but a commodity subject to the market laws of supply and demand.  Education is a reflection of the crisis of capitalism that cannot absorb the commodities it is producing under the existing system. Because of the “brain drain”, the best and most talented continuing to leave their countries and come to the US, the long-term impact will be surplus graduates. The benefits from a surplus college-educated labor force will mean that employers will demand more for less from their employees. At the macro-economic level, this means downward pressure on all professions and living standards owing to excess capacity of college graduates in every field, including medical sciences. Conclusion: downward socioeconomic mobility as many studies indicate will continue as much in the US as in the European Union.

4. Jaime Ortega: 1/3 of Americans live on welfare and most of them have no education some even exploiting for years the free benefits to live more comfortably never working. It seems like they don’t want to take on many low income jobs, whereas illegal immigrants and foreigners exploit these opportunities to earn money. Why haven’t Republicans or Democrats faced these realities?

JVK: According to a study in 2012, 35% of Americans were receiving some kind of “means-tested program” assistance amid the tail-end of the recession that started in 2008. The US federal budget in 2014 was $3.5 trillion, of which 34% went for national security and home security while Social Security, Veterans benefits, Medicare and health amounted to 52%. It is important to note that if we add research and development, NASA, and other defense-related spending not budgeted as such, the percentage rises. In 2011 for example the total costs for defense and related programs was $1.3 trillion, while “human security” programs that critics dismiss it as wasteful entitlements cost $2 trillion. Investment in human security vs. national security is an ideological debate among politicians, media, academics and others. Republicans and many Democrats believe that in an open society government priorities ought to be with defense not human security. 

While very few people would question defense/national security spending, many since the election of Reagan constantly question “human security” as a “waste of tax dollars”. Critics argue that such programs only encourage the poor and minorities to be lazy and parasitic, an argument that was actually floated in England during the era of Adam Smith at the end of the 18^th century. Republicans and many Democrats find nothing wrong spending hundreds of billions on the parasitic defense industry because this sector is associated with patriotism, regardless of whether it adds more security along with a rising public debt. However, these same critics vehemently object to school lunches to feed the poor, assistance for the mentally ill, subsidized housing for people that would otherwise be living in parks, and subsidized health care for the lowest income groups unable to afford immense hospital and prescription costs. It is important to note that the entitlement program money goes right back to corporate America – health insurance and corporate-owned hospitals, supermarket and drug store chains, pharmaceutical companies, and other businesses.

The objection is that the taxpayer is stuck with the bill for human security. However, there is silence when it comes to corporate subsidies and tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. When was the last time that the media raised the issue of General Electric and Boeing receiving US export subsidies, despite the fact that these are extremely profitable companies? When was the last time that politicians and media objected to local governments subsidizing sports stadium for football, basketball and baseball, using taxpayer dollars, instead of building schools, parks and facilities for the homeless and mentally ill? Why is it acceptable to dish out one billion dollars for sports facilities in any given city but highly objectionable to feed, house and provide health care for the poor? 

Considering the price of the ticket for a professional sports event, the government has no problem subsidizing the upper middle class fans and the investors in sports clubs, but it finds it abhorrent to provide a school lunch to the poor and medication for the elderly. Democrats and Republicans alike have no problem providing subsidies, lowering the tax rates and never closing tax loopholes for the corporate sector, any more than they have a problem bailing them out when in crisis as in 2008 to the tune of hundreds of billions in taxpayer money. Who is really parasitic in the fiscal structure that redistributes wealth from the bottom up, corporations and the top ten percent of income earners or the bottom one-third of the population receiving entitlement benefits?   

Part of the objection about entitlements is rooted in racism and xenophobia because of sterotypes that politicians and media have inculcated into the public. The assumption that the media and rightwing politicians reinforce is that recipients are black, illegal Hispanics, and lazy white single mothers in a trailer park. The stereotypes are deeply ingrained in the public mind for decades because the mainstream institutions project such an image to justify transferring resources to defense and corporations. The reality is that the capitalist system is based on structural unemployment because of the process of appropriation and overproduction on a global scale. Politicians, business people, the media and many academics from universities to consulting firms and think tanks agree that “full employment is between 4% and 5%” -this is the official rate not the unofficial that is much higher, and it does not take into account part-time work. There is general agreement that a segment of the “potential workforce” must be outside the “active labor force” on a chronic basis for the “health” – profitability - of the market economy to keep wages low. 

Of course, one way to deal with the chronically unemployed is to put them in work house or prison and force them to work for a room and board inside these institutions, something that many rightwing elements would love as they romanticize about treatment of workers during the early Industrial Revolution in Europe. In 1834, the British Parliament passed the New Poor Law that prohibited relief to any person refusing to enter into a workhouse that were essentially for profit operations based on slave labor conditions. This is one way to deal with the issue today amid globalization and neoliberal policies that dominate not just in the US but globally.

Savings can be realized from putting the chronically unemployed in institutions, and proceeds could be put to use for more defense spending so the US could better prepare itself to win wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as score major victories in covert operations such as Syria and Libya where US intervention produced even more jihadist guerrilla movements. Some of the savings could also go to subsidize the largest banks and corporations in a show of gratitude for taking their profits estimated at $2 trillion out of the country so they would avoid paying taxes.

Republican politicians and the media are constantly reminding people that poverty is a cultural problem caused by the individual’s character flaws rather than the capitalist system that assumes structural unemployment at 5% is “full employment”. When we eliminate the people unable to work because they are old, or unable because of disabilities, or they have children to raise this leaves a percentage of able-bodied people who could work at minimum wage of around $15,000 annually or roughly $4,000 lower than the poverty line which varies from New York to rural Mississippi. Ironically, critics of entitlements are also the advocates of not raising or even eliminating the minimum wage so that more people would live below poverty in unhealthy and hazardous conditions.   

It is true that some people on welfare object to accepting work that pays lower than entitlement benefits including health care coverage. By contrast, Illegal immigrants have no choice and they take such jobs because they will live in groups and share expenses for everything. The 11 million undocumented workers in America are doing just about anything they can from hard construction work in all kinds of weather conditions to farm field work not because they enjoy it and they can make a decent living at it, but because the alternative is to return home or die here.

There are studies indicating that undocumented workers add about 10% of the GDP over the course of a decade. This is in sharp contrast to the rightwing populist rhetoric that undocumented workers are “taking” instead of making more wealth. The clear beneficiaries of this are businesses whose profits remain high because illegal workers are taking jobs that pay at or below legal minimum wage. Instead of striving to raise their wages to legal levels, rightwing politicians and the media use the example of the undocumented workers to lower wages for the rest of the labor force. 

The fact that undocumented workers accept very low pay as a reflection of how employers exploit them can become a model for labor-management relations as many neoliberal advocates of both political parties and the right media would like. However, it is important to remember that when the 2008 recession exploded, many were saying how great it was that the US has a social safety net – unlike the 1930s – and the impact would not be as badly felt by society. The most ironic aspect about the debate on minimum wage is that wealthy politicians voting for tax breaks to businesses and the upper income groups are advocating maintaining the existing low-wages that have one-third of the population qualified for an entitlement program.   These same critics would never argue in favor of capping executive salaries and compensation amounting to 400 times higher than the average wage. 

In the last analysis this is an issue of what kind of society people want as measured by a social contract based on a modicum of social justice. Looking at the growing income gap in the US in the last four decades, there is no doubt that social justice is virtually eliminated from any political debate. Human security issue is one that politicians, media, business, and academics rarely raise, while they have no problem emphasizing criminal justice and national security with the“war on terror” as a monumental distraction from social justice that matters in peoples’ daily lives. Fourteen years after 9/11, people have a realistic appraisal of the level of threat "Islamic terrorism" poses and the degree to which government and media focus on it to distract and impose conformity.