After the midterms, it’s all the rage. What is it? Economic populism. At the most basic level, economic populism is the idea that economies and economic policies should exist to serve the people, or more specifically, the middle class and working classes of American society rather than the powerful few. In short, it puts the welfare of the average American on par with, and often above, the interests of the wealthy elite. It acknowledges that corporations and the market have but a singular goal: to make money, and that singular goal shapes every decision that is made. The well being of America simply isn’t any more of a factor to large corporations and the decisions they make than the fight you had with your spouse is to the person standing beside you in the check out line on Christmas Eve.
Gone also are the days when American corporations and enterprise focused on product. Wanna know why the pair of jeans you bought three weeks ago is worn out but the pair you bought in high school is still pristine? One guess…got it? That’s right: money. Denim with a lower thread count is cheaper to manufacture and unskilled labor sewing it together in Mexico is dirt cheap. With NAFTA in place it’s just like it was made in America. Who cares if they miss a line of stitching? Hell, if the things fall apart in a few months they’ll have to buy another pair!
All the better for jeans companies, but not all the better for you and I. Especially, considering that your job making jeans is now sitting in Mexico, the pair you are wearing costs more than ever despite all the promises and claims that “we have to do it to compete,” and since it was manufactured using crap you’ll have to buy the same pair over and over again.
Welcome to the brave new world. Globalization, NAFTA, uncontrolled free trade, soft monopolies, the outsourcing of America manufacturing jobs and now white collar jobs awaits your stay. Try not to worry too much that for the first time in American history, parent’s worry that their kids will do worse for themselves than they did, and please don’t fret over the fact the numbers bear out that fear.
Lou Dobbs has contended for years that America has been sold down the river by corporations and their unmitigated greed. Both parties have abandoned the middle class and working families in favor of the corporate world –well that was until the 2006 midterms. Several, democrats dubbed “Lou Dobbs Democrats” by the media for their views on economic populism were voted in to power. They campaigned on platforms that promised a new form of economic populism and a return of the DNC to a party both of the people and for the people. The result has been a return of the idea of populism to the mainstream, and a barrage of attacks from all political directions and persuasions.
Thus far, Dobbs has taken the brunt of it because of the amount of exposure and power his show and columns have in bringing the idea to the public mind. Dobbs has made both the term and reality of “class warfare” that has and continues to be perpetuated by corporations, elite individuals, and our own parties on middle class Americans safe to talk about again. And that scares the hell out of the small few that profit off the sweat and tears of the majority of Americans.
Although, I disagree with Dobbs on a number of issues and many of his methods, the response he gives to critics of his views on economic populism is well worth reading.
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