Maybe the AFL came from medieval guilds, but the IWW and the CIO sure as hell didn't.

And I suppose you'd count it as too credulous to suggest that they've just been getting worse? I wasn't around for Carter, so I can't say anything about his presidency, but I distinctly recall things being rough in the '80s, mellowing out a bit in the '90s, then starting to get pretty hairy again once the turn of the century rolled around. In fact, I'm now living where I am because of the aftermath of the dot-com boom, having moved here from the Bay Area (here being northern Indiana). The boom had some great effects while it lasted, but even as it was creating riches, the way that the wealth was distributed (that is, the total amount of economic activity, whether private-sector or public-sector) was ensuring that there were a whole lot of people who weren't going to see much of it. There are those of us who have never forgiven the Democrats for welfare reform, NAFTA, the WTO, and a host of other things; the Clintonistas turned out to be little better than the Reaganistas. They were slicker liars, and so a little less heavy-handed about things, but the end result was basically the same: the further immeseration of the working class and the lumpenproletariat (for lack of a better term)—I include much of what would be called the "middle class" in what I call the "working class," for reasons which are a bit complicated to explain here, but which, if you're perceptive, you'll already understand.

Although I can't speak from personal experience with regard to whether to find policies prior to the Reagan years acceptable, I can get the impressions of people who were there, both directly (asking parents, other relatives, older friends and acquaintances) and indirectly (reading about it or listening to taped interviews). My analysis is that if G-Dub is not the worst President in the history of the United States, he certainly deserves his place in the Hall of Shame. The Republican-dominated Congress of the mid-'90s onward does, as well, and the Democrats currently in office are certainly doing their best to go there also.

But what goes down must come up (or what goes up must come down). I could spount all manner of platitudes, but I think you'll agree that nothing lasts forever.

I don’t think it’s helpful to turn the thread into sidebar issues such as...

When a thread gets into the 2 or 3 hundreds of comments that's what's going to happen. We'll all be back for more on topic stuff when Glenn posts another one for us to get onto. It's all good. :o)

IngSoc:

@kdwmson

And I suppose you'd count it as too credulous to suggest that they've just been getting worse?

Reality-based killjoy!

sysprog:

"Unionism" is a many-splendored thing

Maybe the AFL came from medieval guilds, but the IWW and the CIO sure as hell didn't.

What with the Levelers and the Diggers and all other manner of folk throughout pre-industrial history, Marx can't claim parental rights for those two either.

Not directly, no, although the basic roots are the same. They came out of the reaction to the industrial revolution and the destruction of the guild system. The actual history is complex, but I suffice it to say that, in the West at least, protective associations for workers and protective associations for owners coexisted in the medieval and early modern period as guilds, and the transformation of the industrial revolution significantly increased the divide between owners and workers, causing many of the former to become the latter. There existed along side this "proletarianization" of the early modern bourgeoisie a significant tension over how the working-class organizations ought to be run, with syndicalism and industrial unionism coming out of the tradition that emphasized mass organization rather than the restrictive protection inhereted from the guild traditions. The specific details of how this worked itself out in a given society varied, but the process occurred across Europe and the United States.

@ kdwmson

The existence of community (and the acknowledgement of its importance) does not necessitate the adoption of "collectivist" political forms such as socialism or fascism (variations on the same theme). I expect that, as we become a more liberal society (which we are doing and will continue to do) things like church and family and other forms of community will actually increase in importance rather than recede.

Interesting. While I agree that the "existence of community (and the acknowledgement of its importance) does not necessitate the adoption of "collectivist" political forms such as socialism or fascism," it does often eventually result in them, yes?

And, I wonder if "as we become a more liberal society (which we are doing and will continue to do) things like church and family and other forms of community will actually increase in importance rather than recede" you don't mean that people are becoming more "fundamentalist" in their beliefs? Is this your point? That does seem to be the trend, no?

A lot of people loosely throw around phrases about how some particular 'ism' is shown to be 'wrong' -- as though arguments about society are like some Newtonian theory or geometric proof in which if you discover one fault, everything which then subsequently seems to fall in the 'ism' category you think you've defeated is no longer a good argument, as though any such tainted words and reason and evidence just vanish from the timeline.

A good argument is a good argument, from whatever intellectual current it came from and from whichever individual. (A logical argument based on evidence is far, far different than recommending what policy choices one prefers -- that involves judgments.)

If Marx, or Milton Friedman, made a good argument, it's good no matter which one of them or their followers or their non-followers said it. If it was a bad argument, then it's a bad argument, period.

Furthermore, it is also possible that the entirety of human achievement on this planet, the end goal of human existence, the very height of human aspiration, is not to be defined around an economic system which arose mostly in the 1850s.