The Reason Why
Here is a PREMISE—
Donald Trump was elected America’s first openly Oligarchic President because the Democrats failed to deliver to working/middle-class families a bundle of “home economic” assistance they urgently needed—and still do: affordable housing, affordable healthcare, affordable preschool day care, affordable college for their children, an affordable retirement program they can actually retire on with reasonable comfort and dignity. And this list of needs, despite years and multiple administrations of trying, could never be met because the progressive Democrats could never come up with a convincing answer to the “GOTCHA” question: How are you going to PAY for it?
Even more debilitating, Democrats never put together a cohesive answer to a more fundamental question: Why is it even logical—within the framework of modern market-society—for the national government to undertake the task of assisting working/middle-class families afford their basic “home-economic” needs? Isn’t that what the “invisible hand” of the free-market is supposed to take care of? If the government becomes involved, isn’t that SOCIALISM?
Failing to make these fundamental explanations, the Democrats were not just stymied, they became mute, deer-in-the-headlights bystanders to the drum-beat narrative of Big Business and Finance explaining the opposite case: Why the national government should NOT be involved in these issues at all! And why becoming involved in them would only lead the country into overwhelming debt and financial ruin. In essence, the Oligarchic narrative was about MONEY, and it went, and continues to go, like this:
Money is created by the profit-making efforts of Business and Finance—efforts that, in fact, generate the wages and salaries of the working/middle-class. Without the profit-making efforts of Business and Finance, there would not even be a working/middle-class!
Government, in turn, can only get its spending money by taxing some portion of the wages, salaries, and profits Business-Finance creates—or borrowing the dollars by issuing Treasury bonds. If the government sets taxes too high—to pay for working/middle-class assistance—this constrains the profit-making efforts of Business and Finance which, in turn, only succeeds in constraining working/middle-class wages and salaries—the opposite of what they need.
Spending more than its tax revenues to pay for initiatives to assist the working/middle-class in affording its “home-economic” needs will force the government to borrow even more dollars, pushing the “national debt” beyond what future taxes can repay—threatening the government with default and bankruptcy.
The only “fiscally responsible,” market-economy, strategy for improving working/middle-class living standards, then, is NOT for the government to tax, borrow, and spend to pay for “assistance programs,” but to REMOVE the regulatory strangleholds and tax-burdens government has imposed (supposedly in the name of the “collective well-being”) on the ability of Business and Finance to maximize its profits—the profits that generate the wages and salaries the working/middle-class depends on.
Over time, apparently, Americans reached the conclusion that, if the Democrats had no response to this drum-beat narrative—no counter argument as to why it was profoundly misleading—then it must be true. And if it was true, it made sense, indeed, to go all in with the Oligarchs: Let them dismantle everything they perceive as getting in their way. Free them to make America rich again! And maybe (the working/middle-class voter must have been thinking) these new riches will, in fact, trickle down to me.
And so—here we are with the strangest of alliances: The Business-Finance Oligarchy, whose central strategy is to maximize profits by MINIMIZING labor and human resource expenses—and who are developing and rapidly deploying the AI technologies that will precisely accomplish that goal—"teamed up” with (and cheered on by) the working/middle-class who need, above all else, secure employment that provides the income and benefits needed to live a decent life, raise a family, and retire in relative comfort and dignity.
It seems this “partnership” is already starting to fray—at least from the perspective of the working/middle-class. But where can they turn now? Not back to the old Democrats who no longer are deer-in-the-headlights, but deer flattened on the highway.
If the above premise is correct, any hope of rescuing the situation will depend on a resurrected democratic alliance doing now what the old Democrats failed to do earlier: They must offer a counter-narrative about Money and market-society that explains two fundamental things to the American people:
How can the national government—without raising taxes, and without borrowing dollars that must be repaid with future taxes—PAY for initiatives that will help working/middle-class families afford their basic “home economic” needs?
Why is it not only logical but essential—within the framework of our modern market society—for the national government to undertake the task of envisioning, implementing, and paying for such initiatives? Why, contrary to its own Money narrative, is Business-Finance—on its own—unable to address these needs? And, why should it even want to?
A first attempt at explanation #1 has already been proffered. The five VIDEO-DIAGRAMS posted in the essay The Accidental Miracle of 1971 offer a counter-argument to the Oligarchic money narrative: It is demonstrably false, in the era of modern fiat money, to claim the national government gets its spending dollars by either taxing Business-Finance profits, wages, and salaries—or borrowing from them. This counter-narrative can hopefully be refined and simplified over time, but it is there as a starting point for any interested progressive advocate who wants to grapple with it. There is simply no way forward until the “GOTCHA” question is finally—and systematically—laid to rest.
Next week’s essay—working title: Home Economics & Market Society—will be a first go at explanation #2.