Bamboozled

I really liked using the word "bamboozled" in my last post. Such a lively and active word. And so apropos to the citizens of the US. We can feel things crumbling around us (the environment, social safety nets), but politically it is too complex, and we are given so little information to help us get to the truth. Sometimes it feels like we are all being sold down the river. And according to Jeff Faux, the author of The Global Class War: How America's Bipartisan Elite Lost Our Future and What It Will Take to Win It Back, that feeling is based on reality. It seems that the corporate elites don't have our welfare as their priority. What a surprise.

Faux explains how globalization is creating a new global political elite—"The Party of Davos"—who have more in common with each other than with their fellow citizens.  Their so-called trade agreements (like NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization act as a global constitution that protects only one kind of citizen—the corporate investor.  The inevitable result will be a drop in American living standards that will have dramatic political consequences. Faux concludes with an original strategy for bringing democracy to the global economy beginning with a social contract for North America. (EPI)

I saw Faux on Book Talk yesterday, and he contends that the standard of living for "ordinary" Americans will drop sharply in the next 4 or 5 years.

However technologically “new” the currently evolving economy turns out to be, it will not render obsolete questions of social justice and ecological sustainability, which can be addressed only collectively. Markets are humankind’s most powerful engines of economic growth. But engines need regulating mechanisms—gears, brakes, steering wheels—to make them useful. Similarly, markets need public institutions—central banks, labor protections, tax systems—to curb their tendencies toward excessive inequality and instability. As market engines change, the regulatory mechanisms must also change. History has shown that when these mechanisms do not work well, neither does the market. (Jeff Faux, Sustaining Long Term Growth, in Campaign for America's Future)

That is exactly what is missing, in my mind. The social contract we need to prevent unbridled capitalism from destroying the world.

Today’s economic policies will determine tomorrow’s economy and should therefore be based on an explicit vision of what we want tomorrow’s economy to look like. Thus, at the core of the economic policy debate is the question, What kind of future do we want to create for ourselves and those who will follow?

To those who believe in a market society, the question seems irrelevant: The future will be determined by the market. But if we believe in a market economy within a larger, democratic society, then the question, and the political implications of our responses to it, cannot be avoided. (Jeff Faux, Campaign for America's Future)