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Without a Middle Class, Democracy Becomes Irrelevant. Which Is the Whole Point.
A recent post included the old Turkish Proverb, “When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.“ In that post it was being used to make a point about President Biden, but I think the true wisdom of that proverb is best seen from a more generalized point of view.
A palace is the seat of power. Like our Oval Office. But the palace doesn’t matter. The office doesn’t matter. What matters is the people. Ronald Reagan viewed the Oval Office with such reverence that he refused to remove his suit jacket in such a hallowed place. Bill Clinton got blow jobs from young interns in that same office. Which one was right? Neither. They were both wrong. The place doesn’t matter. There’s no difference between the Oval Office and any other office. But there’s a big difference between Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. And that is a difference that matters.
This next quote is not a Turkish Proverb, but it does come from Turkish President Erdogan: “Democracy is like a train ride. When you reach your stop, you get off.” His point is that democracy is a convenient way to change the people in charge. But once you get the right people in charge, you stop. You no longer need democracy. You’re where you want to be, so you get off the train. You might think that this is sort of missing the point of democracy, but Putin, Castro, Hitler, and many other tyrants would tend to agree with Mr. Erdogan.
It turns out that democracy doesn’t matter any more than palaces or fancy offices do. It’s the people that matter.
American leftists understand this, and have spent the past several decades working tirelessly to convert the American citizenry from freedom-loving independent thinkers to fearful sheep willing to trade freedom for security.
They have done this in many and varied ways, including converting government schools into indoctrination centers for the left, and even up to importing a massive new voting block for Democrats via open borders.
But their most dangerous technique may be the left’s intentional destruction of the middle class. These are people who are neither poor nor rich, and are capable of taking care of themselves. Which means they are also capable of thinking for themselves. Which means they are dangerous to leftists who view elections and independent thinkers as threats. Leftists need sheep, and they fear everyone else. Rightly so, obviously.
The destruction of the middle-class results in a society of only the rich and the poor. Such societies are inherently unstable, and the politics of such societies becomes a simple power struggle, managed by those who redistribute wealth.
Those who want to keep what they earn through their own labor – those people are less dangerous than those who want to take what others have earned.
Venezuela.
A dominant middle class tends to enhance domestic peace and prosperity. The lack of a middle class tends to lead to … well, to Venezuela. Or North Korea or Cuba or some other socialist paradise.
As California’s middle class has either been destroyed or simply left the state, California is starting to look like those countries that destroyed their middle classes. Imagine what California would look like right now without the financial, infrastructure, and military support of the United States federal government. It would look a lot like Mexico, and possibly even worse.
And the Democrats are intentionally destroying our middle class in the other 49 states, simply so they can get to their stop, and get off the democracy train. Then everything will be under control.
No, it won’t. American leftists are making the same mistake that leftists have made around the world for generations. Their efforts to gain government power by taking power from the citizens inevitably leads to instability. They are destroying that which stabilizes society, and are building something that they cannot possibly control.
Again.
And again and again and again.
America was a very nice place for a very long time. Not because there was anything unusual about America. It’s because there was something unusual about Americans. Specifically, the American middle class.
Los Angeles.
The left understands that you don’t destroy America by burning the forests or salting the fields. You destroy America by destroying the American middle class. So that’s what they’re doing. California is leading the way, giving us a preview of what is to come, which may be of interest to those who are unfamiliar with the history of leftism. For example, those who were indoctrinated in American government schools. Watching California implode might be disconcerting for the sheep among us.
For the rest of us, it’s like watching a train crash in slow motion.
Leftists are destroying that which stabilizes society, and are building something they can’t possibly control.
Again.
Published in General
That’s a stretch.
Yes for now, but it’s anti-government too and that part seems likely to increase the more there are.
What is disturbing about this is how many laws a state now needs to preserve our liberty and values. What does that say about states that haven’t passed so many laws? The number of laws reflect just how much our civilization is under attack.
“When a country is rebellious it needs many rulers, but . . . [something or other].” Book of Proverbs. I should be able to remember the whole verse. I can’t.
Someone else? I gotta wrap up some exam grading here.
Take your pick:
https://biblehub.com/proverbs/28-2.htm
He also points out the danger of this in his Who Killed Homer. There is a reason they must separate the western world from its Greek ancestry. If you have the book, see page 45. The middle class were the bedrock:
VDH goes on to quote Euripides:
Yep. Thank you.
For without them, …
“… Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, …”
https://poets.org/poem/second-coming
No, government is eating up too much of our GDP and the earnings of workers. Government policies are making the cost of living too high. Finally, the increased standards for living happily have become more expensive: types of cars,size of houses and conveniences included, added cost of technology, added cost of entertainment and communications, added cost of redistributive programs, etc.
Are you sure this isn’t because the competition has gotten stiffer and you are less competitive compared to (for eg) China than you were fifty years ago?
Fixing government is hard, but not as hard as becoming more competitive. (China has plenty of government, so I’m not sure that’s the entire issue.)
Basic economics. Products are made where there is the most desire for the jobs. We no longer have workers willing to do the most menial manufacturing jobs with the inefficient means of production. We still manufacture as many goods as before, with equipment that requires greater technical skills. Many jobs here have been lost to automation. Countries have raised their poor into the middle class by importing those jobs. I remember when “made in Japan” was a joke. That joke didn’t last long. Then “made in Korea” was a joke. No more. With our min wage laws, we will not take back min wage jobs from China. Our workers need to be worth the “living wage” they want and we need to reduce the regulatory and tax burdens our government has imposed on companies.
Except a lot of the “menial” jobs that no longer exist in the US – at least not in sufficient numbers – were never meant to support a family etc, they were entry-level jobs that helped form good work habits and gain experience to qualify for something better.
I went out to buy my wife a luxury car. She drove a Chrysler minivan for over 250k miles – we had three kids & limited disposable income. Now we have no kids at home, and better finances. Why not, right?
The nicest car I could find was a Genesis SUV. The luxury brand of Hyundai. It’s a spectacular car.
If you would have told me a few years ago that the fanciest luxury car I could find would have been a Hyundai, made in Korea, I would have laughed at you. But here we are.
Well, there are fancier luxury cars, but they cost more than a big house.
I suppose that’s true. But this thing’s pretty nice.
Lordy…
Great cars. Have bought nothing but Japanese for 40 years (Honda, then Toyota). But love the KIAs. Maybe next year.
I drove a G80 (I think that was the model) as a rental for a weekend. Very nice.
ON THE OTHER HAND, I had to spend 15 minutes at the rental center trying to kill all of its intrusive “let me do that for you” reflexes and self-adjustment.
Just be a f#^&#% car, thank you very much.
During the past year or so, the number of Genesis sedans and SUVs in my town has exploded. I see them everywhere now. Hard to argue with great value: as good as (and, in some ways, better than) Mercedes, while oodles of dollars cheaper. Well done, Hyundai!
Or, you could raise trade barriers again. You would be a less wealthy society as a whole, but the poor would be employed. It’s a trade off.
I don’t think having existing American citizens doing the “menial” jobs that are currently done by lots of mostly-illegal migrants, would make America less well-off. Especially considering how much of the income from those “menial” jobs goes back to whatever countries those people came from. THOSE countries might be less well-off, but not the US.
And God knows we would be better off without taking suction on a huge tank of peasant mentality.
There is no doubt about that. After WWII, the US was the only one left standing, and was able to enjoy a twenty year Golden Era. A good deal of hubris and complacency came with that. Japanese steel and autos put paid to that, followed by the South Koreans, etc.. And, once the Cold War was over, things reeeeally accelerated.
The West’s share of global economic activity will continue to decline. The question is whether the Global Pie will grow enough so that even a smaller piece of it will still be bigger than today’s piece. If so, no problem, and our children will be better off than their parents.
Trade barriers means you’d be paying more for stuff that you import cheaply today. (T Shirts, etc.)
Now it could all stay in the States!
But we’re talking about imported labor, displacing what could be Americans taking lower-paying entry-level jobs.
If those people stayed in their countries and produced things there, we could import even more stuff that they make more cheaply! And our own people would have more income to do so!
And buy more imports from the people who stay in their countries and produce things there!
Everybody wins!
Most people want to eat their cake and have it too :-) including me, no judgement
Trade barriers/tariffs as a long-term/permanent STRATEGY do indeed have that effect. Which is why Mercantilism, for instance, is no longer a thing, and hasn’t been for quite some time now.
Trade barriers/tariffs as a short-term TACTIC, however, can work quite well. Something like ‘For the next year (two years? three years? etc.?; all up to YOU), we’re gonna treat YOUR companies that try to do business in OUR country the very same way YOU’ve been treating OUR companies that have been trying to do business in YOURS. Please let us know when you’re ready to cry ‘Uncle!’ and sit down at the negotiating table.”
Would we withstand short term price rises for electronics? Debatable. We depend on bread and circuses these days, we’re vulnerable to that.
The trick, of course, is to structure the measures in a way that hurts THEM more than it hurts US. Sometimes, that’s not possible, though.
And when you can’t, determine who can weather the pain the best and longest.
These days big business needs big contracts from the government, which can then take products and give them to people who used to be customers of big business.