America's low savings rate

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Aug 22 07:07:20 PDT 2001


Gordon Fitch:
> > However, let's say you're talking about the improved
> > condition of working-class people which began to resemble
> > that of the middle class in the period you mention. I think
> > this depended very much on the difficulties of the ruling
> > classes of the period, whose misadministration of the world
> > had led to one major catastrophe after another beginning in
> > 1914 (or earlier than that, if you count the genocide in the
> > Congo). After screwing up mightily, liberalism / capitalism
> > had to fight for its life against both external (Communist)
> > and internal (fascist) enemies. Hence, it had to keep the
> > workers as happy as possible at home. This meant not only
> > high wages but the construction of Welfare systems and some
> > tolerance of unions as long as the unions didn't question
> > the leadership of capitalists. But once the threats began to
> > recede, the "gains" made by the lower orders began to be
> > rescinded, often, because of clever divide-and-rule
> > strategies, with their enthusiastic support.

Lawrence:
> Communism is gone and yet much of the West continues to have a large welfare
> state. In no Western nation has state spending as a percentage of GNP
> dropped below 150% of where it was in 1960. In Europe, in particular, strong
> social safe guards remain in place. It is mostly the English speaking
> countries of the world, with their strong libertarian streak, that have
> moved away from the welfare state.
>
> I don't mean to defend the welfare state. The amount spent on the poor and
> sick is everywhere insufficient, and fundamental questions remain about
> whether that is the best way to go anyway. But I doubt your analysis of why
> strong unions were allowed to exist. In Germany, they still exist.

Well, I've heard from time to time that the Welfare State is under attack in Europe and is now a subject of conflict. I am uncertain of my information, however, because as I do not live in Europe I have to get my information largely through the bourgeois media whose accuracy seems to range from half lies to all lies, and through the Net, whose reliability is legend.

However, if the Welfare of the Welfare State is not now under attack, it seems likely that it will be in the near future. That is because no one is born submissive to the will of another, and even those who seem to submit resent and resist the abrogation of their wills. Political power, then, is a constant struggle, and those who are not acquiring more are losing what they have, unless they have made some kind of peace based in freedom and equality with one another. Therefore, every ruling class and all the constitutents of a ruling class constantly seek to extend and perfect their power (or they cease to rule). Provisionally, the European ruling classes may have found ways of ruling through the Welfare State, but at some point even the pittances allowed to the lower orders will begin to seem onerous to them and better spent on themselves, and the attacks will begin. (If, as I say, they have not already begun.)



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