Why Dubai Ports Rankles

From David Sirota:

Underneath the glut of stories about the now-failed proposal by a Dubai-owned company to buy major American ports was something that every 2008 Democratic presidential candidate would be well-advised to note. No, it wasn’t a new resurgence of “racism,” as many pundits in the corporate media claimed. After all, there was plenty of evidence showing that America’s national security apparatus had very concrete concerns about the deal. And no, it wasn’t merely that America wants better homeland security (although it is true—we do).

What the scandal showed was that Americans are sick and tired of “free” trade policies that prioritize corporate profits over all other economic and national security concerns. As workers’ wages stagnate, the U.S. trade deficit grows and more of our country’s assets are sold off to the highest foreign bidders, that concern is only going to become more prevalent in electoral politics.  Read more.

But does it matter if the Dems are as much coopted by the international overclass elites as the GOP is?

Comments

[J]

Way, way down the road of globalization--decades away, though perhaps not as many decades as one may think--one comes upon the image of the Ouroboros: The snake eating it's own tail.

Because the keystone of a "global economy" of the sort the plutocracy wants and which Jack fears are fairly well-off American consumers. That's the one truly irreplaceable skill Americans have: It's now been proven that Mexicans can work in factories, Indians can man phone banks, Chinese can produce film, Japanese can make cars, Cambodians can sell sex, Dominicans can play baseball, etc. just as well or even better than we can. But the one thing that cannot ever be outsourced from America if the global economy is to keep going is our appetite and ability to buy stuff.

But we can't buy stuff. Not for much longer anyway. The dangling-anvil-on-a-fraying-rope
of credit card debt is old news. But forget what that means to us: To whom, exactly, are all those cheap T-shirts, Playstations, Kia SUVs, X-ray interpretations, soybeans, and other useful/useless stuff going to be sold if we, the professional consumers, are unable to do our duty?

[Jack Whelan]

J--

Interesting point,and I would agree that it is perfectly rational for the overclass types to pursue their interests by looking away from a weakening American market.

You seem to have thought a lot about this angle, and I certainly don't have any clearly formed ideas about it,but how much global consumption is possible? What do you think is going to happen thirty or fifty years down the road? How much consumption can the earth sustain?

Obviously something has to give. Is the whole system going to break down, so we will all of us be living as people in Mexico live now--an overclass, a small retainer class of professionals, and a great mass of desperate underemployed plebes scraping for subsistence?

Isn't this perhaps what is at the bottom of the fears so many Americans have about the "threat" that comes from south of the border. They no longer believe in an America that can lift desperate immigrants to a higher standard of living. Rather, they see America being dragged down to a third world standard.

In the 20th Century the American system was robust enough so that there was no danger that it could be drowned by the mass of immigrants that came to America. People feared it, but it didn't happen.

But now immigration policy has nothing to do with it. It's the way the economy is globalizing, and the problem of illegal immigrants is just something for people to latch onto to focus their anxiety before the inevitible plummeting.

But one way or the other, something has to give. Americans cannot keep consuming the way they do. The rest of the world won't allow it. Big changes are in store if not in my lifetime, certainly in my kid's.

[J]

I actually haven't done much thinking about it at all; my words and thoughts are almost totally off the cuff.

I'm actually fairly upbeat about where the world is headed economically; there's going to be a diminishment of the ability of Americans to buy things, that's for certain, but I see that as an almost totally unalloyed Good. Other societies worldwide will approach, but probably stop far short of reaching, American consumer standards.

I think its happening right now. I'm pretty young--26--and I have friends right now who are determined to have and exceed the lifestyle of their parents and are absolutely *breaking* themselves in the process. Financially, mentally, even physically they're Tapped Out. To say no, to say, "Just a enough is plenty" is an almost revolutionary act these days, regarded as perverse or feebleminded or, of course, Unamerican.

[Jack Whelan]

J.--

I’m curious to understand more clearly where you’re coming from. In your earlier comments you struck me as a Libertarian who thinks that if we just let markets, capital, and people migrate as they wish, things will sort themselves out. And among the things that need to get sorted out is the disproportionate if not obscene level of American consumption. So if I understand you correctly, it would be counterproductive for the American working and middle class to organize to preserve their standard of living because it’s unsustainable. So you are upbeat because you see a balancing out taking place—the developing world gains some; the developed world loses some—and a level equilibrium is found. And people like me are freaking out unnecessarily because what has to happen is happening. Does that accurately represent your view?

If so, then we can go from there, but I want to be sure I understand where you’re coming from. Ultimately my concern is not so much about economic distribution but power distribution. I want to preserve a politically empowered middle, and that requires not an extravagantly consuming middle, but a middle that has economic leverage. I’m fine with a diminished standard of living for working/middle class Americans if it is accompanied by improved political empowerment. But what I see happening is diminution of both economic leverage and political power. And so the severe erosion of the economic leverage since 1980 is at the heart of my concern about the erosion of political leverage. Because if the middle relinquishes its power, then will become like every other stratified, feudal society that ever existed. You and your friends might be comfortable now, but unless you secure a spot for yourself in the overclass, your kids and their kids are very likely to be living in some form of postmodern peonage. The key is to think about what’s happening in power terms not exclusively economic/consumption terms.

jw

[J]

Didn't middle class power get us into this mess in the first place? Yeah, I know that real wages haven't gone up in 30-odd years while housing and health care have become harder to come by affordably, but ever since '80, the American middle class has been "levitating" politically--making decisions based not on economics but on other, abstract issues. Politics as a pasttime, really. So people are free to vote in a way that amuses them: Voting for movie stars. Voting on "religion." Isn't Iraq simply the greatest example ever of a war sponsored by the middle class? Maybe it does have an economic basis, but it was really sold on the basis of fear and, in even larger part, idealism. Bush and Bush's shills came forward and said, "You have freedom. You like freedom. Other people wish they had freedom. Won't you share it with them?" Philanthropic war.

[Jack Whelan]

Come on. The Iraq War is an overclass war that a significant chunk of the middle was manipulated into believing was necessary for national security. It was not initiated by the middle nor is it being fought in the interests of those in the middle. That's the nub of the whole problem. If the people in the middle really controlled the political process, we'd not be in Iraq right now or threatening now to nuke Iran.

At this point American domestic and foreign policy has very little to do with what a politically emasculated and for the most part uninterested American Middle wants or what is in its interests.

A majority of Americans didn't want to go to war in the fall of 2002. They only signed on after we invaded and were battered into compliance by the overclass media. A majority of Americans didn't want tax cuts or to reform social security. The elderly didn't want the the Medicaid bill that was was rammed down everybody's throat. That's the problem when the political power is in the hands of those with the economic power, especially the corporate media. They get to define reality, and you have to be pretty awake not to be conned. Lots of people are already awake; lots more need to wake up.

Maybe I'm naive to think that there's still hope. We'll see. I was incredulous that the American electorate put Bush in office for a second term. But the whole overclass establishment was still in his corner. If that establishment wanted him out, he would have been out just as it ditched Nixon.

My point is that the Middle has to be aroused by being dramatically confronted by the consequences of its having fallen asleep and letting the overclass take over driving the bus. They have to be awakened to a better possibility before it's too late. And it might already be too late. We'll know for sure in the next five years or so.

By the way, you didn't answer my question whether I understood you correctly. And I'll ask another couple of questions: Are you ok with the power distribution as it is? Do you think that it's better to have these oligarchs running things than even a profoundly flawed middle? I guess I'm asking you whether you believe the U.S. can maintain itself as a democratic republic. Or is the jig up, the experiment already over?