It is now five years since the great crash of "the housing bubble" i.e. an enormous con job perpetrated by every level of the financial and real estate scam machine and its willing agents. Five years after revealing themselves to be spectacular failures, the giant wall street banks are still in charge with more power than ever. There is negligible evidence or prospect of ever bringing them to heel, or even punish a single banker that bundled and sold America's future for bonus glory. It is also increasingly evident that the political system controlling regulatory agencies that might curb future abuses has been bought by the predatory class. If regular Americans have any chance of protecting themselves, they (we) will have to do it on their own.
The American population has been split outside the ruling class into an authoritarian idiocracy and a bewildered, atomized mass. The former is, well, hopeless. The latter is by and large resistant to organizing due to residual traditions about individuality, distrust of authority, aversion to compulsion or coercion, and private property. This residue of course goes out the window concerning employment, which is coercive and compulsory by definition. The first and last traditions come from the Horatio Alger mythology perpetuated by the extremely rare success stories and the simple aspect of human nature encapsulated by "mine." Trust issues abound in America as con artists, hucksters, speculators, and other assorted specialists in separating the people from their money have flourished here since the foundation of the republic.
Perhaps what is needed is a new organizational model on a smaller scale than factory-wide trade unions or D.C.-based outfits like Greenpeace or the ACLU. Small, cooperative units about a large suburban block in size that could make use of the new normal to prosper. Not hippie communes, or evangelical communities centered around a church but a group of regular Americans sharing for mutual benefit. Small sacrifices of convenience for great gains in efficiency and cost control. But the central idea is trust and accountability, the final form is less important. Being able to see and communicate with democratically designated authorities directly and having a voice in what they do. The kind of democracy that is almost impossible on a national scale anymore.
There are already intentional communities like this all over America, Google it and take a look. What I have in mind is to take advantage of their models and incorporate existing realities. Child care and education is expensive, durable goods such as stoves or furnaces are also; sharing the things that regular people can do themselves will make life less expensive for all members. Then we have already-existing institutions like credit unions, time banks, community gardens, and so on that can thrive even in deep-red sections of the idiocracy. It is so much more efficient to borrow a book from the library, why not a lawn-mower? Time is so important, and in such short supply that people are willing to buy bad food at bad prices from restaurants rather than spend the time to cook good meals. Our jobs increasingly suck all quality time from our lives, forcing us to spend falling real wages on expensive daycare for our children just to name one more example.
Good jobs that pay are increasingly scarce, if we think in terms of [blaaaahhh] markets the supply of labor is too large. How many people do you know who spend their days "pounding the pavement" for jobs that most are just never going to find anymore? Most of the effort expended in chasing employment is just waste, the game of musical chairs has finally closed out a lot of us. There is so much more we could do instead that would actually be a productive use of time but does not produce an income. Why do people play the lottery or otherwise desire to be rich in many cases? So they don't have to work and can concentrate on what they like to do. The nature of our "go-go-go" economy makes doing something you enjoy, say teaching or restoring cars just as an example, far less enjoyable if you are doing it in the employ of someone else.
We can work together in one way or another, or we can take our chances of starvation separately. The idiocracy has made its choice, they will ritually sacrifice each other to the false god "market" as long as there is one dollar among them. We do not have to follow.
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