> The American Left does not offer a culture of connectedness that
> alienated Americans can plug into. There is lots of stupid hostility to
> any form of "counterculture" and in anarchist circles "lifestylism." This
> is incredibly myopic and a recipe for political marginalization. All great
> resurgences of the American Left in the past century were accompanied by
> cultural movements. And more recently, the anti-globalization movement
> attracted many people and one reason was that the movement provided
> something to belong to.
>
> Even those pathetic anti-war mobilizations in Washington offer something
> in terms of a short-lived community and the empowerment of being with lots
> of people who think like you do.
>
> But Lerner's argument that the Left needs more spirituality is bollocks.
> The last thing this religion-saturated country needs is more religious and
> spiritual mumbo jumbo. It would be more productive and effective to build
> a secular version of Lerner's vision.
>
> Chuck
I mostly agree with all of this...I recall that one of the points made throughout Mike Davis' _Prisoners of the American Dream_ is the dearth of a working class culture in the US. Of course there are many other, more significant factors (like race baiting and other fear mongering) that kept it divided. I don't know enough to judge that assertion, but it seems significant. I don't think more religion is the answer, on the other hand.
In reading through the responses to the Frank/Bartels (while also reading a bunch of stuff by Alain Lipietz [not sure his status in lbo circles] on modes of regulation and consumer credit) I also wonder how much those numbers might change if there was some way to parse the class security people feel because of what they are able to purchase regardless of what their job, education, level of relevant political knowledge, etc. In other words, many people speak of the flipside of class fragmentation (via flexible specialization, union busting, earlier notion of a lack of WC culture) as being identification with status via consumption. Earlier Michael Pollak mentioned the variegated nature of this and how it is different from class (and BTW I liked your tidy parsing of the data available, but/and...) What would this puzzle look like if we were able to probe people's status in terms of personal credit/debt ratio--or, perhaps, their spending habits (how "amoral" are they in the Keynesian sense)--compared to, say, their confidence in the economy and feelings about inequality, taxes, etc.? I probably don't know the correct names for these indexes, but if we could correlate them with party affiliation, feelings on taxes and spending, and the like, that would make for an interesting data set. (But, no, I don't have $30K to do it).
Maybe that's just thumb twiddling but it seems like status and class might overlap significantly if the latter weren't discussed in terms of income or position relative to the means of production (as most would argue it should be) but was discussed in terms of how freely they feel they can perform their class identity. I have no idea how this could be objectively proven--maybe correlating the things they would like to buy, they things they think they can't buy, things they do buy with how much of the latter is done with money they have and how much of that purchasing comes from credit or these mortgage equity loans that Doug is always talking about.
On the other hand, on the more strategic side, it would seem that the growing polarization does create an opportunity to reinvigorate the other meaning of class as a material social relation. This seems to be shifting already with the doubling of credit card minimun payments and the slowdown or collapse of housing will change it significantly and fast. But my question, and the one inspired by the discussion about health care, unions, and strategy over the last few weeks, would be, is: if this shift did happen and there were millions of people thrown out of work (or suddenly, painfully aware of their position in the production process) what is there to bargain with? Isn't the likely result of any attempt to stall the neo-liberal machine in the US that the capitalists will just pack their bags and move to their hong kong office, help to institute fordism there and make sure the first order of business it to get as many nukes for MAD w. the US? It seems like we are in a unique position compared to the collapse in the 1930s when instituting Keynesianism made sense in this country (or in the west in general). I don't think even Britain would count as an example of what a post-Core country might look like when the core was based on the fordist (not just taylorist) model. I am being overly pessimistic, theoretical and deterministic, but it seems like there is a nugget of a question here that is at least relevant. Then again, I am probably just buying into a certain line of rhetoric about the Post-Industrial age that has yet to arrive. Still, any comments are welcome.