Sunday, July 29, 2018

the Robert Reich effect


There is something I find suspicious when I agree with one voice or one point of view too much. And thus it is that I am suspicious of how much I agree with Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor under then-president Bill Clinton. Somehow his writings about how and why the Average Joe is getting economically screwed suck me in, make me agree ... but also make me suspect my own agreement.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to live with the fact that I enjoy and agree with the very man I suspect.
Here's an essay [today] from The Guardian.
Two fundamental forces have changed the structure of the US economy, directly altering the balance of power between business and labor. The first is the increasing difficulty for workers of joining together in trade unions. The second is the growing ease by which corporations can join together in oligopolies or to form monopolies.
Yes, it's another analysis, another deconstruction of how the American worker is getting fucked. In general, another analysis sends me running to the hills: Everyone has an analysis, a whine, a liberal and caring take ... and nobody's doing much more than using that particular realm to ... write another analysis, whine or caring take. I keep waiting for someone to toss a bomb in the arch-duke's passing carriage, but there seems to be no time to DO something other than analyze and wax 'compassionate' and 'intelligent' and 'truthful' and all the rest of it. [Lord, I have become the spawn of Donald Trump.]

But I keep on reading Reich's stuff while giving a cold shoulder to his analytical compatriots, some of whom are no doubt savvy and intelligent and ... repetitive and boring. Call me when you've lit the fuse or pulled the pin.

What can I say? Taste is taste. I like Reich (no matter how short he is :) )

1 comment:

  1. The presentation of our economy is a dog and pony show designed to bring feeder fish to the Wall Street shark tank, and to blind the worker to any action in their own best interests.

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